Black Velvet
by Kreigen
Summary: Bill and the 12th Doctor's adventures are somewhat derailed by a meeting of a mysterious stranger, and the questions that her past raise will lead them to amazing discoveries. New story set at some early point in the current series with original characters. I also plan to integrate Vastra/Jenny into later chapters. Small link to Shallow Breathing chapter Refelections Pt 2.
1. Chapter 1

_Prologue_

She shouldn't be here.

The young woman knew this instinctively, but something unbearable, a primal pull she was unable to ignore seemed to keep her there.

She had to keep telling herself that she wasn't crossing her own timeline; ' _past her'_ had already left the scene by now, there was no danger in being here. But it still felt _wrong_.

Yet _necessary_.

The woman took two steps and gazed over the edge of the dusty precipice she had landed on, mercifully away from the heart of the destruction. Her bare feet left uneven footprints in the beige grit, and the warm particles slid between her toes. She curled them beneath her in grief as she saw what lay beneath her.

Far down, in a valley that she had once called home, lay a seemingly peaceful, unharmed settlement. Basic mud houses, simple structures, just how she remembered them, even after all this time. Limestone temples, each detail exactly as she recalled rose above the residential homes. But of course, she already knew her memory was perfect; a curse perhaps, when her history was taken into consideration.

She closed her eyes, and like a jukebox the sounds of the bustling Temple of Prophecies flooded into her ears: the serious intonations of the elders, sonorous music, the songs…

" _My heart did you think I had forgotten you?_

 _Deserted and forsaken you?_

 _For I have been locked in this cold glass cage,_

 _Watched in silence through every age,_

 _Waiting for you."_

She had spent so much time there as a child it was almost more of a home than her parent's humble dwelling. She had loved those days wandering through the aisles, admiring the reverent architecture, and most of all, she had adored the people she had shared that time with, her people.

But now the temple was empty, filled with only dust and dirt, deathly silence, and _blood stains_ , nobody would ever walk those halls again. The woman did not believe in such a romantic notion as ghosts; she knew the truth was far more sinister.

She opened her eyes, and bent down slowly to grip a handful of gritty dirt into her hand and brought it to her face, letting the grains slip through her fingers and she breathed in her native ground. Maybe there was some trace of what was left in this meagre sample; a dusting of skin perhaps? Catching her own mood, she chided herself internally for her sentimentality – it wasn't going to help now; she had a mission and she was going to stick to it. Feelings didn't come into it.

She stood and slowly let the dirt in her hand fly off into the tailwind, and watched it twirl and dissipate off into the distance, like watching her past disappear before her. Her fists clenched angrily at the symbolism; how dare they? How dare they take everything from her? If only she knew who _they_ were. She ground her teeth and stifled a scream of frustration. She had already told herself once about getting emotional.

Instead she looked stoically out over the settlement, and allowed her breathing to return to a slow and steady pace. Silently she repeated the promise in her head that she had made to her people, and above all, the _one_ she had let down the most. Without warning the familiar emptiness she carried around with her made itself known, chilling her heart and causing a shudder to wrack her body before she quelled it.

But she must not meddle, must not fall into the fantasies of undoing all this that despair brought with it. Her people had put strict rules on those ideas and she must respect them, must uphold their memory by adhering to them.

Even if it meant destroying them.

Without another word, the girl turned her back on the scene, and was gone forever.

* * *

Chapter One

"What do you mean you haven't got control of it?! I thought that she was your ship?!"

"She doesn't belong to anybody Bill, not really."

Bill tried desperately to cling on to any free corner as the TARDIS pulled them down, hard. For the last few seconds the time-travelling machine had seemed determined to force them to land. The trouble was the Doctor could not work out why. Bill watched on in rising panic and sickness as the machine hurtled down and the Doctor appeared to be hitting buttons at random

"Don't you have an escape pod installed on this thing? No, never mind that – I'd settle for a seat belt!"

"Something isn't letting us leave the area of space we were passing through" the Doctor stated, ignoring Bill's usual indignant questions about the preposterous nature of his ship, or of anything he did for that matter; they hadn't been travelling together long, and yet he had still somehow managed to let the elegant student get under his skin, "Worse than that" he added, spinning around a screen and pressing a couple of windows, causing an alarm to sound throughout the cavernous room, "It's like a net" he breathed, "Waiting for certain fish" he pressed another couple of windows on the touch screen and the pitch of the alarm increased, "And we are the catch of the day it seems!"

"Wonderful!" she shot back sarcastically, "Well - if we can't stop it then can we at least slow down now please?" Bill growled at the babbling man, wondering how he had missed the most important part of their predicament (the impending crash), and struggling to keep up with his trail of thought.

"What? Oh well..." he pulled down on a lever and the TARDIS stopped suddenly, whining and throwing them both into the command console, "I figure if you can't beat them-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the TARDIS was plunged into pitch blackness, all power cut, the only faint light emanating from the windows of the Police Box.

"Join them" he whispered in the dark, running up to the window.

"Did you just land?" Bill asked, incredulous, "A bunch of people want to capture us, and you've just….let them?" she sighed, exasperated, "I swear-"

"They're not after us in particular, at least, I don't think they are" he breathed excitedly.

"Then, why have they grounded us and switched off the lights?" Bill laughed ruefully, sauntering up to the window.

"No, no, no – this doesn't make any sense!" the Doctor exclaimed, throwing the door open onto a lush and vibrant woodland.

"You don't say" Bill deadpanned, following the Time Lord out into the wilderness, still smarting from being ignored once more.

" _Arceous_." The Doctor stated, "The year 3500" he licked his lips, "Yes, I'm quite sure, it tastes right. A human colony, somewhere in the Suvin galaxy" his face struck with confusion and shock.

"So, another planet" Bill stated, less moved by that statement now than she should be and more concerned with why the Doctor was panicking, her wide eyes surveying the surrounding woods, looking for what had troubled the Doctor so much, "What's the big deal?"

"They're nomads, of a kind" the Doctor shouted back, running between trees to look out over at a clearing in the distance, "Didn't believe in advanced technology, dropped off and started again, farmers, hunter-gatherers, simple people" he trailed off, his mind ticking over.

"So?" Bill asked joining him to survey the view.

"So how do they have access to the sort of technology that can trap a Time Lord?" he queried, gesturing to the sight below.

Bill had to admit he had a point; rounded tens covered in animal pelts, thatch huts, wooden farming pens filled with livestock, and open fires dotted around the flat grassland – a little thriving community, but not a modern one.

"No electricity to start with" he pointed out, "Never mind that, no inclination to even try" he threw out his hands as his Scottish drawl became agitated, "Who am I missing?" he turned to Bill, his hands gripping his grey hair, "Who?"

"Don't you mean, "what"?" she asked, tilting her head in enquiry and looping an arm around his, partially to be companionable and partially for comfort.

"No, I mean _who_. I know what I mean" he grumbled, "Not senile yet" he added in an undertone.

"So where do we start?" Bill absentmindedly fingered the cuffs of her denim jacket and bit her lower lip, deliberately ignoring the Doctor's chiding tone and pushing him further, "That's how it works right? Land somewhere, find a disaster, fix and go?" she smirked knowingly, relishing the Doctor's uncomfortable silence.

"HELP!"

A woman's scream permeated from the clearing below, throaty and desperate.

"Right there" the Doctor smirked triumphantly at the almost prescient timing. He grabbed Bill's slender hand in his own and started to run down the slope that led to the settlement. Bill's only option was to resign herself to the chase and hope that her hair wasn't completely dishevelled by the time they got to the colony.

* * *

"It has struck again!" a sturdy woman cried out, leaving her thatch hut and brandishing her pitchfork into the air as the Doctor rounded the corner with Bill, "My own daughter" she sobbed to the gathering crowd that had drawn to the cry, falling to her knees in her traditional farming dress and dropping the pitchfork, burying her face into her strong hands, "The beast has taken her" she wailed.

"This looks more like it" the Doctor grimly noted to Bill, skirting on the outskirts of the crowd to avoid attention, "This planet was terraformed perfectly before settlement, no beasts, no other apex predators, no nasties, a perfect ecosystem for humanity" he spoke fast, grabbing Bill by the wrists urgently, "They've not been here long enough for anything else to evolve" he took a deep breath of air in to be sure, "No, definitely not been here long enough" he concluded, "So whatever they are taking about doesn't belong here. You – good sir!"

The Doctor picked on an onlooker slightly distanced from the rest, an older looking man with a long grey ponytail and a full beard, clad in a loose white vest and khaki trousers with bare feet, who looked on thoughtfully and silently. He turned his head, but left his arms crossed and did not move towards the two travellers.

"You're not from round here" he spoke, simply, "I guess you were that spaceship that landed just?" he inclined his head to the sky, "Folks didn't believe me, but I know what I saw – I was a historian once, one of the first to come here"

"Yes, and we're trapped, our power's cut" the Doctor replied candidly, "Probably by the same thing that's terrorising your community"

"We don't like visitors here" the man carried on, in an unfriendly drawl.

"Then let's do both of ourselves a favour" the Doctor bartered, "Tell me what's going on here, I sort it out – that's what I do, and we get off your planet. Minimum fuss"

The man surveyed them for a second, whilst Bill beamed encouragingly and nodded in assent of the Doctor.

"No harm I suppose – but it's your funeral" he turned to face him slightly, "There's been a series of violent deaths in the community. Now it's not like we have never seen a murder, or a fight gone wrong, but this was no human that did these. They happen so fast, it started with mauled animals, dead livestock, but then it escalated to our citizens" he swallowed back the nascent emotion threatening to overcome his voice, "Nobody from our settlement is ever seen going in or out of the places where they die, but people _are_ dying" he looked around to see who was listening, but the crowd was still milling around the grieving farmer woman, he drew the two travellers in closer and whispered, "But we have seen a beast – not one of the native creatures but a big, black thing – like a giant cat" the man took another look around to make sure he hadn't alarmed anyone, and pulled back from the Doctor and Bill.

"But you haven't seen this beast clearly?" the Doctor pondered.

"Yeah, and how come you haven't seen it going in and out of the buildings?" Bill added.

"You don't understand!" the man angered at their doubt, "It moves so fast, so deadly, it's not a normal creature" he took a deep breath to calm his rising temper, "We have no idea how it got here, nobody ever reported seeing a spacecraft before I saw yours today" he frowned disapprovingly at this fact, "But I _know_ it must be alien – there's no other explanation. Some of the newer citizens believe such notions are fanciful" he shook his head, "Which is why you will not be kindly received by them, so I suggest you-"

"It's there!" the farmer woman pointed; now up and just about standing with the support of her neighbours, "To the west! It's the monster!" her legs buckled beneath her as the other humans attempted to prop her up.

The Doctor turned in the direction she was pointing and saw a jet black figure, watching the scene from one side of the camp, partially camouflaged by the bushes. He was sure it rang a bell somewhere in his encyclopaedic knowledge – but he couldn't pinpoint where. It wasn't moving, but almost as if it could sense its discovery, began to run away as soon as the attention was turned its way.

"Bill, with me" the Doctor ordered, leaving the hostile community to grieve, and not wishing to outstay their welcome. "We need to follow that thing" he added, bringing up a futuristic looking scanner from his pocket and interpreting its beeps seemingly instantly, "It hasn't gone far"

"Why is it running?"

"Don't you want to know what this is?" the Doctor smiled proudly brandishing the technology at her, "This is an EnviroScanner 1990 – picks up anachronistic-"

"Space toys, whatever" Bill waved off the Doctor as they delved back into the surrounding forest in the direction of the creature, "You're missing the point; if that thing is as deadly as they say, why is it running away?"

The Doctor stopped, halfway through a small clearing, dwarfed by the huge conifer trees that surrounded them, looking offended by Bill's indifference.

"Why does anything run?" he asked patronisingly, "Because it's scared – aren't you impressed by how clever I am?"

"If I was that thing" Bill shrugged, "I don't think I would be scared of-"

A feral roar permeated through their reverie, seeming to engulf the air around them, making it impossible for them to tell what direction it was coming from.

"I bet you want that scanner now" the Doctor laughed, raising his eyebrows to form a mocking crease in his forehead, pulling it back out of his purple coat, "In fact it is right…."

"There!" Bill exclaimed as she swivelled on the spot to check behind herself, pointing to the great, anthropomorphic feline creature that was rushing up from behind them.

"Yes" the Doctor croaked, looking up from the scanner in fear, "Best get out of its way" he shouted, grabbing for Bill's arm to try to pull her away in the opposite direction without noticing that the younger woman was already several feet ahead of him.

"Charmed" he quipped, before following in her trail, barely getting off of his feet in time before the black furred, muscular creature burst into the clearing and certainly not pausing long enough to get a decent look at it.

It was fast though, and the head start they had was being closed in on rapidly as they sprinted blindly through the unfamiliar landscape, trying to follow the beaten path made by the settlers.

"Try to change direction!" the Doctor shouted up ahead, "Confuse it!"

Bill registered the command and turned sharply left, making the Doctor almost face plant the forest bed trying to alter his course.

"I said confuse _it_ not confuse _me_!" he scolded, only just catching up with Bill as the creature made the same sharp, unexpected turn in their direction, its pace not relenting.

"What do you want, bloody indicators?!" Bill shrieked, taking another sharp left and catching her arm on a thorn bush.

"Don't keep turning left or we will just go round in a circle!" he demanded, keeping up but almost losing his balance when Bill stumbled in his path in pain. Pushing her forward her glanced back; the beast was still following their trail, the diversions having minimal effect.

"Turning left just seemed like the better option" she shouted over her shoulder.

"Right, now!" The Doctor grabbed Bill by the shoulders and steered her practically at a right angle, trying to make a desperate move to throw the creature off. The young woman made the movement but cascaded onto her knees. With a hand under her armpit, the Doctor pulled her up so she could keep going, only to be abruptly halted.

They stopped facing a huge rock face, not so sheer it would totally unclimbable, but they would never get far up enough to escape such a strong beast.

"No" the Doctor looked left and right, but the forest was too thick, the only way out was the way they had come in.

"Didn't I say _left_ seemed like a-" Bill froze.

Their path was blocked by what looked almost like a werewolf, but with the features of a panther, rather than a wild dog, breath hot and angry. It stared at them, taking deep breaths with its forearms swinging loosely at its side. The funny thing was, now it was still, it was obvious it was not half as big as it has seemed when it was chasing them; in fact, it was only about the size of an average human female. Upon further inspection, the pair could see that it had vague curves and a bust under the rags that adorned its taut body.

The other glaring exception to what they had expected was that the monster was simple staring at them, blocking their path out but doing nothing to hurt them.

"Doctor" Bill trembled, physically cowering behind the Time Lord's confident stance, "Why isn't it attacking us?"

The creature cocked its head in confusion, and swished its full tail back and forth.

"Attacking you?!" it growled indignantly, but with an undeniably female lilt to its voice, "Aren't you running from the-forget it" she stopped mid-explanation, slapping her face with frustration, "We don't have time for this – you need to get up on one of those rocks, _now_ " she gestured towards one of the smaller, more climbable parts of the rock face.

"Why?" Bill asked.

The Doctor was still staring, unmoving, his dark eyes squinting and his head turning as he tried to fathom the creature before him, unsure of the level of his miscalculation.

"Because if you don't, you will die, and I really don't want that to happen" the panther lady continued imploringly, "So please can you get out of the way?"

"You were chasing us" Bill remarked blithely, "Why should we-"

"Listen to her!" the Doctor turned dramatically, and pushed Bill towards the rock face sternly, having seemingly made up his mind in that instance, "Just get up and stop taking for once" he announced, "We've made a terrible error" he added gravely as he helped Bill ascend in an ungainly manner.

"Good choice, _Time Lord_ " the panther added with gravity, throwing them a sidelong glance to watch the pair clamber up a small rock, before turning to face the new creature that interrupted the scene.

The second creature could only be descried as…odd. It was about four foot tall, potbellied, with stout hooves – it was bipedal, but awkward, with humanlike hands but a rounded head that rose to a single antenna. It didn't have eyes to speak of, but a sharp-toothed jaw with a long tongue, and it was carrying a short futuristic looking stick with a deathly blue light emanating from the end.

" _Oh_ …" the Doctor whined, on his hands and knees at the edge of the tallest point they had managed to comfortably climb up to, with a flat plain that they could rest at, "Oh this is far worse than we thought" he scrambled as close to the scene as he could get without falling off.

Down below, he blind creature seemed to be sensing the panther lady somehow, as it determinedly began to swipe for her with the stick. The beast woman moved out of the way expertly; this clearly was not the first time she had been forced to do this.

Bill crawled beside the Doctor to watch, and was immediately horrified by what she saw; the stick seemed to instantly kill anything it came in contact with. Flowers and bushes withered and died the second the blue light passed through them. All the plants in the clearing that it came near to seemed to be, _leaning away_ from the weapon.

The panther creature knew what she was doing though, because she had retreated back far enough to pick up a medium sized stone in her right hand. Her diminutive attacker made a foolhardy direct swipe at her, and she raised the rock directly in its path, causing the weapon to glace off sharply and fall to the floor.

"Of course - genius" the Doctor smiled approvingly, "It can't pass through non-living material". Bill could only watch in stupor as the fight continued.

The panther woman dived and picked up the stick herself, and as her pursuer make a lurch for it, rose up with remarkable agility and slashed a direct swipe through the creature's exposed body. It immediately fell lifeless below her. Without saying a further word, she dropped the stick on the floor, and stamped on the handle, causing the blue light to fade out. She turned and regarded the two newcomers perched upon the rock, and waited for them to talk.

"That should have caused you a lot more damage than that" the Doctor spoke softly, unbelievingly, "People don't just destroy a _death stick_ and walk away like that, they usually release a huge amount of radiation as the trapped time line resolves"

"They're running them from a central processor" the creature replied nonchalantly, "They're kind of like diet death sticks, with limited signal" she shrugged, nonplussed, "They don't work very far away from the mothership; I was surprised too the first time, was expecting much more of a shock" she added, "I think destroying these ones just causes the energy to return to the ship, rather than dissipate"

"WOAH!" Bill interjected suddenly, "Woah! Woah! Can you please stop with the geek speak and explain to me what on Earth just happened"

The panther lady smiled, and perched herself on a nearby fallen tree log.

"Earth" she smiled wistfully, "It's been a while since I was there" taking a deep breath, she continued, "Your Time Lord friend has called it a _death stick_ , but that's more of a fond nickname" she smirked, "The actual name is a MURDER device, or Moment Under Death Energy Re-simulator" she practically spat the name out as she spoke it, "It works similar to a Weeping Angel I suppose, expect it doesn't allow you to live – traps someone in a never ending loop of their own death, never allowing it to complete, and uses the resulting time energy to make fell energy for more killing machines. If it were a full-on device, destroying it would have freed the soul and allowed their timeline to complete, but as I said, it's not the real deal"

"Genocides were committed in the name of those things" the Doctor declared angrily, clambering down from the rock to face the panther woman, "Mass murder in the name of creating an energy source! It's reprehensible – I" he bent to finger through the remains in the dirt, "I didn't think many had survived the Judoon's manhunt" he hummed to himself, "I know Vastra mentioned one turned up in her time but…"

"What's a Vastra?" Bill quipped, who had now also, with some difficulty, dropped herself back to the floor, and was regarding the now silent beast with consternation.

"Did you have to kill it?" she murmured, looking towards the deceased alien that had been brandishing the weapon.

"Mindless slaves" the panther woman replied, with no feeling, "They are programmed to kill, and won't stop until forced" noticing the human's disapproving look, she elaborated, "Believe me, I did try, in the past"

Ignoring Bill's unconvinced frown, the panther stood and walked over to the Doctor and bent down to his level in front of the destroyed equipment.

"They trapped you too didn't they?" she mused, "Same as they have trapped me looking like this"

He looked over at her under his angry, bushy eyebrows and considered his response before continuing.

"Did you kill any of the settlers?"

"Not the humans" the panther continued, "I'll admit I ate a couple of farm animals out of desperation, but I tried to hunt in the wild after that, it caused too much negative attention"

"You have another form?" he wagered, accepting her answer.

"Let's say this is me on a bad day" she continued, "I usually look closer to you two than a zoo animal" satisfied with his reply, she rose back up to check they were still alone, "But the same signal that is blocking your TARDIS over there" she gestured in the general direction from where they had come from, "Is also stopping me from returning to my natural form, or from leaving" she growled in the back of her throat.

"Hold up!" Bill interjected once more, losing the plot in the dizzying pace of their conversation and skipping up to the Doctor's side, who now also rose to greet her. "Can you start from the beginning please? Perhaps with a name"

"Certainly" the panther bowed her head respectfully, "My name is Bolt"

"Bill" the human replied.

"Just call me Doctor" added the Time Lord, "And before you start, how about you tell me _what_ you are?"

"The last Time Chaser" the panther woman replied.


	2. Chapter 2

Bill turned to the Doctor, a puzzled expression dominating her face.

"What's that when it's at home then?"

"No! No that's not possible, that's..." he whipped out his beloved scanner once more and ran it over Bolt's form, "... _possible?!"_ He exclaimed, "You're showing two separate patterns of DNA!"

"Maybe we should start from the beginning, but first – let's move to safety, I'm sure they will be back for the remains" Bolt began to walk out of the clearing, "Perhaps near to that fancy TARDIS you have Doctor?"

Once the trio had located back on top of the hill next to the TARDIS, just in case they needed a place to barricade within, Bolt motioned them to sit, and then joined them, forming a triangle of bodies outside the TARDIS.

"That weapon we saw" Bolt began, "Really that's the start of it all, in a strange way"

"Well we know that they're formed by killing" the Doctor mused, "Or by..." his eyes brightened with understanding, " _Genocide"_ he looked up and saw the panther woman's grim face confirm his fears.

"They called it one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of time" Bolt sighed, leaning back on her palms, "The extinction of the Time Chasers – an entire race wiped out in one day. Nobody knows why, and nobody knows how"

"I still don't understand what a Time Chaser is?" Bill raised her hand, interjecting the conversation.

"Distant, distant cousins of Time Lords" the Doctor informed her without turning to her, unwilling to take his eyes off of Bolt, scrutinising her every move, "A gentle, placid race – capable of amazing things. Their memories were transferred down genetically, so knowledge would grow and cultivate in every generation, they were known as the mediators of the galaxy for their diplomacy skills, their devastatingly accurate prophecies, they developed the ability to travel through time _physically,_ harnessing Time Energy with their own bodies" the Doctor slowed down, suddenly catching up with the thread of the story, "But they refused to use it, had strict laws against meddling in time – preferred to study and to remain in the tranquillity of their own civilisation. They were so peaceful that they would not fight back if attacked..."

"Why do you think we were so easy to wipe out?" Bolt added sardonically, "I remember the noise: gunfire and then silence, the awful drone of the insect-like warplanes, and then the silence once more. They just let them run them down; no resistance whatsoever" her eyes momentarily brimmed with emotion before it was controlled, "Worst of all, they only had to kill half of the race to wipe out the rest"

" _Of course"_ the Doctor gesticulated in understanding, his eyes too reflecting angry sympathy, "The bonding process of the Time Chasers!"

"Once one half goes, the other shortly follows" Bolt whispered in a mournful undertone.

"Like – dying of a broken heart?" Bill added, aghast, enraptured by the story.

"More literal" the Doctor added, "Not the sort of sappy "soul mate" drabble that you humans concoct, no. Time Chasers were literally born as half a being, and do not attain full personhood until they bond with another of their kind. It allowed them to share knowledge, attain their full abilities, function as a completely formed being. You've heard the Greek myth that humans are born with four arms and legs, and two heads, and that they are torn from their other half in life, forever searching the planet to find them?" the Doctor turned to his young companion, "That's Time Chaser history plus a bit of Chinese whispers"

"Quite" Bolt added, "We don't have four arms, but we do bond physically and our consciousness is forever split"

"But…" Bill raised a questioning eyebrow, "You're _alone_ " she added softly, sadly.

"Yes", the panther woman suddenly dropped her head, her voice breaking.

"This still doesn't explain why you are presenting as one of the Panthereon race does it?" the Doctor leant forward and stood up, circling round the stranger, "Very, very curious" he mused.

"There's a reason I survived" the woman stood to face the Doctor, eye to eye, and then began to pace, "I was sent off World during the genocide" she explained, "I was ten years old, and they used the last of the stored Time Energy to send me away, to random co-ordinates, masking the signal so that I couldn't be followed"

"Why? Why send a child to quite possibly their doom? You could have landed anywhere" the Doctor shot back, circling the woman.

"Desperation" Bolt replied, "The last hope before the end"

"But why _you_ " he pressed, squinting, scrutinising as the woman circled him back.

"There was supposed to be two of us" she rasped, "A prophecy foresaw it"

"That's just a myth" the Doctor countered.

"It's only a myth because it never came true!" the woman shouted angrily. The Doctor halted, apparently impressed.

"I was marked, as was another child. We were supposed to be the saviours of our race!" the woman cried, throwing her muscular, furred arms out to nobody in particular, "But only I survived"

"Time Chaser prophecies were always completely accurate" the Doctor challenged.

"This one wasn't" Bolt spat, "I was shot off planet and landed on the Panthereon home world with _nothing_ " she scored a line in front of herself with her hand, "I was raised by the Pathereon race until I was old enough to harness my powers and travel"

"That explains how you have been transferred their ability of shapeshifting" the Doctor closed the gap between the two of them, "But how do you know the other child did not live?"

"I saw her die" Bolt wailed, "I saw my parents die, I saw everyone I ever knew or cared about die" steeling herself, the woman began to calm, "Whoever committed the genocide changed the time line, the prophecy was redundant. But that's not important anymore – I don't care to explain the details"

"So why are you here?"

"If I could not manage salvation, I promised I would try for retribution. So I followed the threads, one at a time, slowly but surely travelling from place to place when I had the energy" Bolt brought her carnivorous face as close to the Doctor's angry Scottish face as was comfortably possible, "This is just one more thread that I intend to tie up"

The Doctor and Bolt held each other's gaze for a few more seconds before the Doctor broke into a laugh and clapped the muscular woman on the back, walking towards a bewildered Bill, who was sat watching the scene, her angular limbs cross-legged on the floor, totally nonplussed.

"Up you get missy, looks like we have some work to do"

"Sorry" Bill grimaced in confusion, "Did you get any of that?"

"I'll give you the short version" the Doctor smirked, pulling up the student from the floor, "She's the last of an ancient race that was wiped out and she's looking for answers" he pointed to Bolt, "That weapon we saw earlier functions by looping the deaths of murdered people"

" _Oh"_ Bill breathed in understanding, and then shot Bolt a sympathetic look, " _Oh"_

"I believe that they are being _sold_ the energy, from a greater source" the panther woman added, "I was trying to follow the supply to get to the demand – but then I got stuck by the same signal net that has grounded and turned off your TARDIS. It's stopping me from returning to my humanoid form or leaving this planet – just seems to block anything to do with Time Energy"

"So you're like a werewolf?" Bill wagered, "What sets you off?"

Bolt laughed kindly, the question appearing to cheer her up somewhat,

" Very similar" she conceded, "I was bitten as a child when they found me – not unwillingly" she added, seeing Bill's horrified reaction, "It was part of the process to make me welcome in their society, and I had nobody else to turn to"

"And you were only ten years old?" Bill interjected.

"Yes" Bill confirmed with certainty, her eidetic memory leaving no doubts, "It's triggered by very strong emotions" she confirmed, answering Bill's earlier question, "As a child, that's not easy to keep a lid on, especially following severe trauma, but they taught me to control it as I grew up. These days, I usually just present as human" Bolt shrugged as if it was a non-issue, which Bill supposed it was to her.

"And…" Bill stepped forward and softly placed a hand on the shoulder of the other woman, "There _were_ two of you?" she asked sympathetically.

"Yes, well" Bolt shook her head, "Maybe if we sort this mess out, I'll explain that another time"

"So you'll talk to her, but not me" the Doctor grumbled.

"She's a lot more polite than you, Time Lord" Bolt shot back, flashing a grateful smile at Bill, "Now, how about I show you where these guys are parked?"

"Is this a joke?" asked Bill.

"No…" the Doctor breathed, "It's very clever"

Bill was disinclined to agree, seeing as though all she appeared to be able to see was an empty field.

"I don't get it" she admitted, unimpressed.

"Ok" the Doctor accepted, "How about you watch that deer over there"

The Doctor motioned to where a small doe was grazing on the field, suddenly, something startled the deer and she began to run; but strangely she seemed to circle around an object, not take the quickest route straight across the field. She then made off into a small copse and was out of sight.

"So it's invisible" Bill guessed.

"Not quite – otherwise that doe would have run headfirst into the thing" the Doctor smiled smugly, obviously impressed with how clever he was going to sound because of this, "It's DNA blocked, a bit like your Youtube videos from America you can't watch, except you can't see this because you are human – in fact, if you got too close, you would feel an unwavering urge to turn away – ingenious really as there are no other species here that would pose a threat, well – not until they dragged _Puss in Boots_ down here"

Bolt simply did not react, only handed Bill a small stone.

"Give it a good throw" she encouraged.

Bill gave the small pebble a lob and gasped when it seemingly glanced off of the air with a small tinny noise.

"Ok, I believe you now" she conceded.

"Here" the Doctor passed bill a pair of sunglasses, "Bet you're glad for my gadgets _now_ eh?"

As Bill slipped the sunglasses she could see a strange spacecraft, silver exterior and oblong in shape, like a pre-fab workstation. It didn't look particularly sophisticated on the outside, but all sort of emissions and steams were venting out of various grills. Something was going on inside, and Bill was certain she wasn't going to enjoy the explanation.

"Go on then" she turned to the Doctor in resignation, "What's going on?"

"Actually, I was hoping our new friend might be able to elucidate there" he ventured, turning expectantly to the newcomer who exhaled heavily.

"I've worked out a few things" Bolt started, "They're systematically killing and they've been building up their prey through the food chain, rodents, small mammals, livestock, then up to humans" she paused, darkly, "I believe they have lured me and you" at this she pointed to herself and then the Doctor, "Down here because we are the last step; a higher-functioning alien species with time travel history – but I haven't been able to get close enough to work out why- it's like they're building up to something…" she tailed off.

"Of course" the Doctor exclaimed, "The Syllogists! I should have recognised the space ship!"

"Come again?" asked Bill.

"A species of statisticians, incredibly logical, a practically emotionless species" the Doctor explained semi-incoherently as his mind pieced together all the pieces of information he had been fed, "They were known to build such graded machines, up until now they were mainly used for low level extermination services"

" _Extermination?!"_ Bill cried out, alarmed.

"Well yes" the Doctor replied, matter-of-factly, "It worked on a sort of system, almost proportional – the machines would harvest the energy of say, 10 rats, and that would provide enough power to clear a building of a cockroach infestation almost instantaneously, above that you would need maybe 10 foxes for an infestation of rats, you get the idea? They were extremely successful until a few animal rights groups pointed out the obvious ethical issues and eventually they went more or less out of business..." the Doctor stopped to think for a moment before he added, "A cold species, like I said – ends justify the means type; sacrifice a few to remove a greater problem"

"Doctor" Bill cut in urgently.

"I suppose it makes a morbid sort of sense; the damage caused by a hoard of one creature, versus the lives of a few others, over time the calculation must work out in favour of making the sacrifice – still terribly bad taste…goodness knows who sold them _Death Sticks_ – they could have made a fortune if they had stayed legal, mobile killing units…"

" _Doctor!"_ Bill shouted, louder.

"What?" he growled, angry at being broken from his reverie.

"If they have killed all these things already, and are now after you or her" Bill nodded over to Bolt, who had remained silent for the duration of the rant, " _What_ are they trying to exterminate now?"

The silence that followed that question was more than enough to confirm Bill's educated guess.

"Right" she swallowed hard, "How many? This colony?"

"No" the Doctor decided, "Too small"

"You certainly think highly of yourself" Bill quipped, but the joke had none of her usual positive charm.

"She has a point, Time Lord" Bolt added, "How would this work beyond Arceous – this planet isn't exactly technologically equipped?"

"But that's _exactly_ why they chose here" he stressed, "Land on a planet of technophobes, harvest the creatures, move on to the residents – nobody here is going to suspect an alien invasion – they barely believe that _we_ are here! That man earlier, he said the newer folk thought it…" he clicked his fingers in irritation at forgetting the word.

"Fanciful" Bill offered.

"Yes fanciful!" the Doctor threw his arms up in relief, "So they are never going to go looking, never going to have the constitution to see past the DNA cloaking, they were happier to believe in some sort of Hound of the Baskervilles scenario" he aimed the comment at Bolt, who nodded sagely.

"I doubt they planned it" Bolt spoke, "But it certainly played into their hands to have a monstrous scapegoat – plays well into a nomadic mentality" she took a few steps towards the excitable Doctor, "But you still haven't explained how they are going to do anything more than wipe out the settlement"

"They've had time, thanks to the complacence of these people" the Doctor continued, "Too busy throwing spears at you and chasing fairy tales to realise what was being built under their noses – who knows what they have in there, but it would only take a little amplification mixed with the imprint of our time travelling history to spread the extermination just far enough, given the spread of humanity in 3500 to…"

"Eliminate them completely" Bolt finished, "Of course – but what provides a strong enough signal?"

"WOAH. WOAH THERE." Bill jumped in between the two waving her arms around for attention, "I'm sorry, did I skip the part where we are all freaked out about the death wielding Teletubbies trying to murder ALL HUMANS?!" she looked in exasperation at the pair, "Why are you so calm?"

"You forget, human" Bolt dipped her head solemnly, "This is not my first genocide I have seen"

"Nor mine" the Doctor whispered, "But I'll be damned if I see another"

"Besides" Bolt added more hopefully, "They can't do this without some source of amplification and killing either one of both of us" she motioned to the Doctor, "We might be stuck here, but if we can disrupt whatever is holding us here and shut down the operation, you should be able to leave safely – and I should be able to get the information I need"

"But… _why?"_ Bill asked, still not fully comprehending the situation.

"It's like your Time Lord said" Bolt stated, "They've somehow come to the decision that eradicating

humanity right now at this point in time, is less of an evil that the actions they would otherwise go on and commit – everything they do is this form of…twisted logic"

"But that's mad, that just makes them mass murderers; how can they justify that?"

"Bill!" the Doctor grabbed the young girl by her shoulders with joy, "Bill that's it you've got it! If we just…"

His idea was interrupted by the sight of the TARDIS seemingly flying past, straight towards the landed Syllogist spacecraft. Within a few seconds it had been caught up in some form of tractor beam, and disappeared down a hatch into the inner core of the vehicle.

"Let me guess" Bill pushed the Doctor from her shoulders, "AMPLIFICATION SOURCE?!" she yelled accusatorily.

"Don't get mad" the Doctor ordered, grabbing Bill's hand and running down the grass hill that sloped towards the spacecraft and motioning for Bolt to follow, "I have a way to fix this"

"How?" Bolt queried, following along uncertainly.

"Simple" the Doctor shouted over his shoulder, "We are going to give them exactly what they want!"

"Okay." Bill managed to spit through gritted teeth, "I'm definitely mad now"


	3. Chapter 3

_Friendship_ had always been a complicated term for Bolt.

As she watched her new found companions rush down the hill towards this folly, she couldn't help a dreadful sense of déjà vu from washing over her.

It was a terrible fact to admit to, but true nonetheless; everyone who had ever joined her in this seemingly cursed quest to avenge her people was now dead.

Bolt was older than her outward appearance belied. She didn't quite match up to the Time Lord, but she had more than a few years on the human. Her exact age was 150, still young for her people (her ancestral memory reminded her that 1,000 had been considered a good age for a Time Chaser), but for a human, that was more than a lifetime. Testament to that were the humans who she had met and seen through to their personal endings. It was their faces that plagued her mind now as she reminded herself what she had promised after the last one:

 _This will be the last goodbye._

The curse of her race's perfect memory was that she could remember every previous farewell so clearly, and they haunted her like insistent ghosts, and she couldn't help but think of them on the descent to the ship.

* * *

 _ **1347 – Kent, England**_

 _The first time Bolt had time travelled of her own free will after the first time her people sent her away, she had been only been 20 years old; she'd landed in a medieval farm in Kent, mercifully in the middle of the night, and deep in the midst of a wheat field._

It had taken her ages to simply find her way out of the field and onto the main estate; it was clearly the land of a noble – strip farming was common in these times. Everything had seemed so disorganised and primitive. Bolt had never been on Earth before – and she was only here to investigate one thing; the first recorded use of the exact strand of the death energy that had killed her people. Trouble was, she was alone, on an alien planet, wearing anachronistic clothes, and with technology that might get her lynched in fear. She had made sure straight away that she was presenting as human before even daring to poke her head out of the field.

She might have given up straight away, if she hadn't bumped into Isabella wandering around the fields late at night. Her clothes might have aged her, with her long skirts and her hair wrapped up in a plain hood, but her eyes had sparkled with the mischief of youth – a young adult, Bolt guessed, probably about 18.

"I knew I heard something" she declared, "I met a man here once who appeared just like you – travelled around in a big box though – been waiting to see if he'd come back ever since"

That had confirmed the language and dialect translator Bolt had had microchipped at that mobile tech station a few months ago was working. It had also confirmed why the woman hadn't gone running at the first opportunity.

That is how Bolt had made her first "alien friend" – Isabella, a farmer's daughter. If the human hadn't have taken her in, and given her some clothes to wear, she suspected her adventure might have come to a premature end.

They had spent the next year together, Bolt assumed a new name; Agnes, and in between working for Isabella's father's farm, sought out where the signal she had traced was coming from – searching under cover of darkness usually, with Isabella tagging on by her side. Trouble was, the signal kept moving, as if it didn't want to be found. Bolt had known it was here, but could not figure out what advantage there was in whoever was cultivating it bringing it to such an early period of modern human civilisation.

But despite the delay and uncertainty surrounding the arrangement, and Bolt's undying urgency to find the information she needed and move on, she found it unexpectedly pleasant to have what became a "friend". Isabella was vivacious and intelligent, and objectively good company to investigate with. Without intentionally meaning to, Bolt started to wonder if it wouldn't hurt to take a little longer to find the signal than she had originally intended.

The Panthereon people who had raised her had been stoic, formal, and regimented in their society – and Bolt had grown up to prioritise rules and duty over emotion. She had also been an outsider, a refugee in their close knit society, and whilst she had been accepted and cared for, she had never found affection or friendship with any individual; simply put, it just was not their way. Their sign of welcoming her into their society had been to bite her and, if anything, bestow yet another curse on her life (no matter how willing she had been at the time, it had turned out it mainly just made her life more complicated).

Admittedly, her childhood before the disaster of war had been very different. Her native land was one of close, lifelong, unbreakable bonds that formed for life – to the point that breaking them meant death for both parties. Their very biology dictated that they did not reach full personhood until they reached adult age and completed the bonding process with another Time Chaser.

It wasn't that it was illegal to bond with other species, just unsatisfying and impossible physiologically to attain the same result. There had been one recorded attempt of a Time Chaser trying tried to live life with another species, but they had come back broken and drained after many years, and fallen incurably ill before fading away.

She had known, from a young age, what her purpose was, that she was loved by her parents, revered by her society, and had been destined to a bondmate so strongly, it had been written in prophecy. It had all been so certain, predestined, right…and then fear and meddling had torn up the rulebook, and her life with it.

Bolt had therefore grown up with two extremes – the streamlined order of her foster society, and the carefree adoration of her murdered people. Her nature craved the company of others, but her experience taught her that it always came with a caveat; the pain of losing those you love. So it was with trepidation that she started a new friendship with Isabella, and with the knowledge that she would have to guard against any ill-advised attempts to push it any further than that – both due to the constraints of the time, and because she could never be truly happy with a human as a bondmate, no matter how much she cared for them.

It had all come to a sudden end however far before Bolt could consider what her future in this time would lead to.

* * *

They had been getting closer and closer to the signal, to the point where they had tracked it to one specific field. Isabella couldn't see it, but Bolt could; there was a makeshift hut that had been erected with a blue light emanating from it. It had been DNA blocked against humans, same as the ship that Bolt was tracking down in her present time with the Doctor – and neither Isabella, not any of her other community, would ever have seen it, or even had the inclination to get close to it. Just getting close to the hut made Isabella feel uneasy (despite the fact to her, all she could see was a patch of grass), and so Bolt had decided it would be safer for her to come back in the day time on her own, as she didn't know if whatever was stopping Isabella from seeing the hut might also cause her harm if she got too close. Isabella had protested, not wanting to let her friend go alone, but they had left agreeing that Bolt would not do anything drastic without consulting her first.

Bolt went to sleep that night however unable to shake the feeling that they had somehow been noticed.

"If I have brought anything upon you…" she murmured under her breath as she drifted off, "I will never forgive myself for the selfishness of bringing this to your door"

The next day, when Bolt snuck back to the field instead of working, the hut had gone. Worse still, the signal had completely disappeared.

They'd fled.

But why?

Bolt could only think of one answer; whatever they had done, they'd completed, and that meant they'd moved on, and it was probably too late to prevent whatever ill they had produced.

Bolt felt the cold tendrils of panic set in before she had raced back to the community to find chaos.

"It's the black death!"

Bolt held back, and watched from afar, as the townspeople she had lived with for a year had rushed around, proclaiming the presence of swelling and lumps on a number of citizens had appeared. Rumours had been brought in of the dreadful plague ravishing overseas – but nobody had truly been ready for it. Talk began of boarding up homes, burning fires, purifying the air…Bolt could barely keep up, but she was careful to stay hidden and stay far away, she suspected the illness was confined to humans, but couldn't help the nagging feeling that this was a little too convenient that the plague had hit on the same day that the mysterious signal had disappeared.

Had this been the perfect cover for whatever had been planned?

She was too blindsided to think of the answer in the moment. The only person she had wanted to find was Isabella, and once she had got a good idea of what was going on in the town, she ran back to the farm to find Isabella's father in hysterics in the fields.

"My daughter…my only daughter!"

The moment that Bolt had truly understood how much she cared for Isabella had been the moment she had seen Isabella's father in tears, and had known that her friend was going to die.

Bolt had to be held back from going to Isabella's side – it was madness, she knew, and the townsfolk were not about to permit another young woman to become freely infected, but Bolt was unrealistically certain this had something to do with the signal she was investigating. She couldn't be sure how, but she couldn't let her companion pass away uncounted for and alone – she had to care for her, tell her what had happened – try to help…

But in the end, there was nothing you could do against the Black Death.

Bolt spent a grim two days hiding away from the main part of the town, living off what scraps she could manage and in a state of permanent distress, before the news fed back to her that Isabella has succumbed to the plague.

Against her better judgement, she returned back to the civilisation one more time, and from afar saw her friend tossed into a mass grave made for the expected large amount of victims that would inevitably follow. Already, the town that had sheltered her for the past year was being ceremoniously stripped of life – fires burned in the streets and more and more homes were boarded up. It was time to leave.

She knew now that this plague was part of human history, but even until this very day she could never shake the uneasiness that the two events – the signal disappearing and the Black Death arriving, had been linked. She had also never lost the image of Isabella's limp body sliding away, or the emptiness in the pit of her stomach that had only been filled with a weighty sorrow, that she still carried with her to this day.

Bolt wasn't sure if it was her imagination, but she could have also sworn that Isabella's body had a faint bluish tinge to it as it had fallen into the grave. But as she travelled from this cursed time using the Time Energy she had naturally built up over the last year to escape to wherever she could manage, she told herself that it was just her grief imagining things.


	4. Chapter 4

_**2017 – London Euston Underground Station**_

 _When Bolt reappeared, having travelled suddenly from the plague-infested 1348 in a distraught rush, she didn't realise she would end up in the middle of a busy flow of human traffic – for a moment she had panicked before she realised that nobody appeared to have taken any notice of her whatsoever (it might have been different had she not been presenting as human already)._

"Sorry"

The suited man who had walked into her hadn't even looked up from the electronic device in his hand before skirting around her and disappearing down one of the many tunnels that led off from the main lobby that she had materialised in. She had never seen so many people in one place; it felt like it should be chaos but everyone appeared to move in a form of subconscious synchronisation – like a shoal of fish.

"Scuse me"

As she was buffeted into by a sharply dressed woman, also staring into one of the same devices that the man had been, Bolt realised that she was the only person standing still and allowed herself to be pulled down one of the many tunnels along with the tide of bodies surrounding her.

"Yes well I have told Diane that I need those reports by close of play-"

"Honestly, if I know Dave, he's been playing down this whole relationship-"

"No I wasn't – if you'll just – I wasn't with her!"

With her sensitive hearing, Bolt could barely stand the barrage of noise and conversations that began to wash over her; nobody appeared to be looking where they were going, but either jabbing at or talking into these small, rectangular communication modules. Not only that, a large portion of the humans were wearing headsets, or wires inserted into their ears. It certainly had explained why she had gone unnoticed after appearing out of nowhere; nobody was attending to anything but their own immediate surroundings, if that.

It suddenly came to Bolt's attention that she must look faintly ridiculous – she had sensibly left behind the medieval clothing she owned and changed back into her own clothes, but even that was just simple, handmade garments that she had kept from her life on Pathereon; it was nothing compared to the colourful, garish clothing that rushed past her, clad on the dozens of harried humans.

She found herself jostled down a moving set of metal stairs, through another set of tunnels, and then out onto a platform next to a large gap with two long metal rails. After about two minutes, with a terrible growl, a long transportation device halted, and slid open to invite in passengers. After it had vomited out a flood of bodies, the humans on the platform spilled into the spaces as if compelled by a vacuum. It would have been fascinating to watch, if Bolt had not been bundled into the nearest gap – squashed between a very thin, but very sweaty young man, and a woman who looked like she might be pregnant. As the doors had slid shut, Bolt hadn't even been able to comprehend what a mess she was in before the great machine lurched into terrifying life.

For the first few stops, Bolt simply grabbed onto the nearest pole, and held her position as people traded places on various platforms similar to the one she had started on. The rush and jumbled order of the proceedings was enough of a distraction for her to zone out for a good while and fall into a sort of trance. It was much easier to do that, and not to think of her predicament, or the history she had run away from.

She might have stayed there until the end of the line, if it hadn't been for the nagging presence that she started to notice about two stops in. Someone was watching her, and appeared to be attempting to get closer to her with every stop. By about four stops, Bolt could see her edging closer – it was a young woman, clutching a satchel overflowing with books, and eyes wide with wonder.

Bolt found herself thinking that perhaps she had not been as inconspicuous as she thought. But she didn't try to leave the vehicle, even if it was the safer option, and eventually, after the bulk of the popular destinations had passed, they found themselves standing next to each other, with a few scattered people sat at the far ends of the carriage, out of earshot.

The woman leaned back against the closed door, her wavy brown hair spilling over her shoulders and laughed.

"I thought you would try to run – I'm not sure I am up for anymore sprinting, I think I pushed over an old lady to get on this tube"

Bolt simply looked back, silently

"Can you speak English?" the woman asked, a shocked expression gracing her face.

"Yes" Bolt answered.

"I saw you, in Euston station" the woman had a bright, pretty face, and a big smile, "I can't believe I traced the signal accurately – the last few times I have been completely wrong" she laughed again, "I study time travel" she qualified, "Well, unofficially, I guess – most people think I am a bit mad"

Bolt was inclined to agree, but wasn't sure what to do, but at the same time she had also been very limited in her choice of viable options, she didn't even know how to get out of this tunnel, let alone how to navigate the world beyond it. From what she had seen she could assume it was very different from medieval times.

"I need help" Bolt stated, "Do you have somewhere safe? I am sorry to ask this of you"

Even as she had spoken the words, a familiar dread had crept up – the same one that had stalked her from childhood and now carried the weight of Isabella's passing on its shoulders; the fear of involving others.

But she also knew she couldn't get out of this alone.

"Yes-yes of course!" the girl looked as if her greatest wish had just been granted, "We've gone a bit in the wrong direction – do you have an Oyster Card?"

Bolt looked back blankly.

"Never mind, we'll find a stop without barriers"

* * *

They travelled together; with the human more or less leading Bolt around, through various tunnels and on and off more of the long vessels (the human kept calling them "tubes") until they alighted for the last time, and rose up several staircases and back up into the fresh air. Bolt was blown away by the sheer scope of the civilisation; the buildings, the moving vehicles, the noise…it was nothing like anything she had ever experienced. For a moment she just stood there, staring at everything before the human sidled up to her.

"Bit overwhelming?"

Bolt nodded, and allowed herself to be ferried along.

The human had taken Bolt back to a flat in a state of disarray – papers lay scattered across the floor, peppered with books and dirty plates. It looked like the haunt of a madman. Bolt was beginning to regret her decision to follow the woman back when she noticed one book lay open on a page titled:

" _The Myth of the Time Chasers"_

Bolt wandered over to the book and picked it up with trembling hands, the human watching with rapt attention.

"My name's Kate…by the way" Kate awkwardly added with a small, awkward wave of her hand, almost losing her grip on the bag in the process and having to scramble to stop everything cascading on to the floor.

But Bolt had only been interested in the book and barely noticed the clumsy human as she deposited her items onto the sofa, directly on top of more books.

" _Some scholars of intergalactic time assert that the Time Chasers should be a historically recorded race, despite no definitive trace of any physical remains…"_

Bolt flicked to another page.

" _There have been rumours of a sole surviving member of the Time Chaser race, but they have never been located or identified. It is considered likely that at the time of writing, any hypothetical survivor would have perished through lack of the hypothesised "bonding" process"_

"Are you ok?"

Bolt scrambled through the book again.

" _An integral part of the legend centres on the joining of two young children, and their eventual bonding and ascendancy into greatness. But even if we assume the existence of the Time Chasers, there is no record of more than one survivor, and so this can safely be assumed to be a folk story, and not what we would truly call a "prophecy""_

She felt sick.

"Are you, _interested_ in the Time Chasers?" Kate had softly walked round to the other side of the book that Bolt was holding, and placed a hand gently on Bolt's arm to grab her attention. Bolt looked up in surprise.

"I am one"

Kate passed out, and it was only by luck that she mainly collapsed onto a nearby chair.

* * *

That was how Bolt had come to live with Kate – a time travel enthusiast and scholar of the Time Chasers. It had seemed almost providence that they had come to find each other, but it was mainly to do with Kate's attempts to track any source of time travel, which had been largely unsuccessful (although she did have several sightings of an anachronistic blue police box).

Once Kate had come to, Bolt had sat down and gone through everything that had happened, her childhood, her time as a refugee, and her experiences with Isabella and the plague. Kate had listened without one interruption, and once Bolt finished had assailed her with a barrage of questions and observations. They had spoken into the small hours of the morning, before falling asleep where they sat.

Kate was 25 years old and a librarian and dedicated all her spare time to studying time travel, and practically fell over herself to offer Bolt sanctuary in her flat. Bolt had made it clear that she had neither money nor food to offer, but Kate did not seem bothered at all – having a live subject to study was too much of an opportunity to pass up.

Once Bolt had explained the purpose of her quest, and the evil energy that had not only wiped out her race, but appeared in medieval England, Kate immediately had at least five books that helped to corroborate the account. When Bolt couldn't explain something, Kate could think of an alternative explanation (she had a theory that the energy had perhaps been stopping the plague from entering the town in Kent, and it was its leaving that let the plague in, but they never got to the bottom of that one). When Kate had gaps in the books account, Bolt could fill her in with first-hand knowledge. They barely noticed as the years slipped by, and they had settled into a happy routine – Kate managing to secure Bolt a job in the Library she worked in, and helping her to develop an alias: Louisa.

Kate's family started to…assume things. Her sister Anna came to visit the once, but she lived abroad in a country called Australia and Kate had explained to Bolt that it was essentially on the other side of the planet, so she couldn't come often. The rest of the family didn't take too kindly to the implication of their daughter's non-conformist sexuality, and eventually stopped contacting her or returning calls.

The ridiculous thing was their relationship was practically platonic, but nobody ever believed that, they just assumed the pair were painfully closeted. Kate knew that Bolt could never bond with a human, and had also heard her calling out in her native language, every night. When she asked Bolt why she did it, Bolt had replied that she did it just in case she got an answer. Kate knew, in her heart, Bolt could never let go of the one she had left behind, and even if she could, a human would never be enough. It didn't stop the ache though, or the disinterest in anyone else. They may as well have been a couple, save the romance and the intimacy, and she forsook seeking that with anyone else for the rest of her human life.

Bolt had known it was a possibility she might see Kate's life out to its conclusion, and also that Kate was sacrificing what most humans actively sought; the courtship, the possible promiscuity, the ritual they called "marriage" (similar to bonding she found out, but less final and physical). She had tried, once, to convince Kate to meet someone – but the human had insisted there was nothing to it, and she just considered herself to be asexual. Bolt knew it was a lie, and Kate knew that Bolt knew, but from that point on there was an unspoken agreement between them never to mention it ever again.

The decades passed in a blur – with the pair always searching to solve the mystery of Bolt's people, and discovering an invaluable amount of data, documents, and information – with Bolt occasionally leaving to follow up on a lead in another time or place. But given the discrepancy in their lifespans, the time came when Kate began to slow down, when Bolt was only beginning to speed up. It also began to be glaringly obvious that Bolt was not aging appropriately (she just looked permanently in her "20s" by human standards), and it was starting to attract awkward questions; so the Time Chaser was forced to quit her job and spend her days out of the public eye.

* * *

As Kate turned elderly, Bolt dedicated more time to looking after her, and at 96, Kate was confined to a hospital bed as her life began to ebb away. It had just been the two of them for so long that Bolt struggled to imagine a life without Kate. The hospital staff had assumed that Bolt was Kate's granddaughter, and they had lied by omission and allowed the assumption to work in their favour. The truth of their relationship was too complicated and inexplicable to anyone else, and that was before factoring in that Bolt was a 92 year old alien who looked like a young human adult.

The day before Kate slipped away, her frail, speckled hand had enveloped Bolt's smooth, unblemished fingers as she sat in her usual spot during visiting hours:

"I love you" Kate had whispered.

"I know you do" Bolt had stuttered, fighting back tears of both guilt and heartbreak, "You know I do too"

Kate smiled wistfully.

"No you don't" she shook her head, "Not in the same way" she squeezed Bolt's fingers, "But I wouldn't change it, don't you worry" she sighed with pain and then forced herself on, "Finish our work my dear, find the people that did this to you"

"I will" Bolt promised thickly, knowing that this time, she meant every word.

Kate had passed away the next day.

Bolt say by Kate's peaceful body, not knowing where to go, what to do, or how to feel. She had all the research they had done, plenty of leads to follow, and a real chance at fulfilling her oath to catch the people responsible for the genocide of her people. Yet without Kate, it seemed hollow. She had watched her companion grow from a young, strong adult to a dying elder in a shorter space of time that roughly 10% of her own expected lifespan. She was practically a child; her best friend's life felt like it had flashed past like an extended holiday. Bolt wished she could feel that this was the saddest moment of her life – she had stayed with Kate longer than anyone; but Kate was right, her heart was tied to her past, and nobody could even attempt to supersede that.

She might have stayed longer, helped to clear up Kate's affairs, arrange the funeral, if it hasn't been for what happened next.

"Hello?"

A faint, familiar Australian accent snuck into the room, and Bolt was snapped suddenly into the present moment with an icy punch. Bolt didn't turn around, and a teary gasp followed the greeting as footsteps beckoned the coming of a situation the Time Chaser had tried to avoid for decades.

"I'm too late – oh I knew she was ill but…" another tearful gap broke up the sentence, "My only sister. If only I had visited more, she must have been so lonely-"

The voice cut off suddenly, and Bolt could see out of the corner of her eye that the woman was stood facing her, from the other side of the bed. She couldn't seem to raise her head to acknowledge the woman.

" _Jesus Christ_ …it can't be?"

Bolt had last seen Kate's sister Anna many decades ago, and she was painfully aware that, as far as humans go, her apparently unaged appearance was totally inexplicable.

"It is Louisa isn't it?" Anna continued, "I never forget a face but…it _can't be?!"_

Bolt knew she had to make a decision quickly, or accept the consequences of bringing Anna into her confidence. Her hands trembled as her whole body seemed to pulse with a terror she hadn't felt since the plague had hit Isabella's village. There was so much she still needed to do to avenge her people – to lose it all now for something so sentimental as a funeral would be frivolous; she was sure Kate would see it the same way, it was her life's work.

But that meant she had to leave right now, and let Kate down, forever. She doubted she would ever be able to find her way back to this precise time ever again once she had left. She was Kate's only true friend; they were more or less family – who else would be there for her at the service?

"You don't have to be worried…I…." Anna paused, clearly thinking of how to word the next part of her sentence so as to not frighten Bolt away, "I know Kate researched some _odd_ things, and you were… _close"_ Bolt heard Anna take one tentative step further, "I never thought any of it could be true…"

Anna took another step further, and that was enough for Bolt to make up her mind.

"I have to go" Bolt announced suddenly, shooting up out of her seat and running past Anna, trying not to bash the older woman as she scooted past her out of the door.

"No wait!" Anna turned to call after Bolt as she ran down the corridor, "Please!"

Doors turned into staircases turned into hallways – a startled shout, a trolley turned over…Bolt could barely keep up. She found herself at the bottom of a staircase facing an emergency exit, with no idea who had followed. The push bar to open the door had a plastic tag across it, and there was a sign stating "Not to be opened unless in case of an emergency" on the window.

"Hey!" a male voice shouted down the stairs, "What do you think you're-"

Bolt didn't wait to let him finish his sentence, and careered through the door, setting off an alarm and sending her spilling out onto a car park. She chose a random direction and ran, tears streaming down her face as guilt dragged at her heels. Immediately she wanted to turn back, but she could already see people running out of the door after her, and swivelling their heads round to look for the culprit who had caused such a commotion. Regretfully, she had let the time energy that she had built up over the last decades gather around her, and had allowed herself to be transported away to any another time than this one.

She spent the next 58 years travelling alone, too haunted by the memories of Isabella, Kate, and her ancient past to make another friend again, until she had been stranded on the planet Arceous and had met Bill and the Doctor.


	5. Chapter 5

_**4026 – The Time Chaser Homeworld – Voltfelis**_

 _However, chronologically it was much later in the history of the universe that Bolt's most painful memory resided, though given the nature of her abilities, it was actually at the very beginning of her timeline, long before Isabella or Kate had met Bolt, but paradoxically, long after both of them had died_

When Bolt had been born, she had not immediately been marked as anything out of the ordinary.

Time Chaser society followed a very functional and very peaceful structure; their main employment was as arbitrators in matters of galactic importance, such as peace and trade talks, or war negotiations. As the mediators of the galaxy, Time Chasers were respected and, for many centuries, had been left alone on their home planet. They were known to be isolationist and protective over their own society, but logical and open minded. Anyone not involved in this career choice tended to matters on the planet, such as farming, study, or prophecy.

Time Chaser children tended to be precocious, due to the ancestral link between memories. A child would inherit the memories of their parents, and once attained, such memories were indelible. It only took a child as long as they learned the basic functions of life (such as talking) before they could begin to learn at an accelerated rate. It was both a blessing and a curse; having access to such knowledge was powerful, but also overwhelming and hard to manage. It was impossible to access all the information at any one time, and this could cause Time Chasers to be slow decision makers (as they needed to explore all possible answers to a question). But once correctly prompted, the memory could generally be recalled.

The main weakness of the Time Chasers was the essential "bonding" process which all adults had to go through to attain full personhood. A Time Chaser was born with an emptiness that was only able to be satiated with another Time Chaser. They were essentially born as half a person in a literal sense. Once a Time Chaser reached adult age, they would start to feel the "longing". There were no rules as to who this had to be with; Time Chasers were not precious on gender, age gaps between adults, or status - and the bonding process would complete once two matching individuals consented. The only catch was that it was biologically impossible to complete with another species, and so whilst taking a partner from another race was not "banned" – it would not stop the individual feeling the "longing" for their missing half, and over time could lead to madness and death.

Bonding could not be forced, but was permanent once completed. It was common for young adults to experience "sparks" which were little bursts of Time Energy felt between a possible partner. But the true bonding process linked the two lives together with an indestructible bond that filled the emptiness and ceased the longing.

But there was a catch; the bond was so strong that it meant that once one half of the partnership died, the other would follow within seconds, at most minutes depending on the strength of their constitution. For this reason, Time Chasers eschewed war and violence and vowed not even to defend themselves if attacked. It was an open secret that Time Chasers had unlocked the secret of using Time Energy within their own bodies to travel through time physically, but they strictly refused to use it. "Meddling" in time was considered the greatest sin and crime, and the strongest held Time Chaser belief was to leave the past as it was, and let then future play out as fate intended.

Their placid nature was both a weakness and a virtue, and would ultimately destroy them.

* * *

 _Bolt was about two years old when she was left to play with the neighbour's daughter, Aurora whilst their parents were talking._

 _The two had never met before, and regarded each other curiously and carefully, in the way that children do when they meet something new at a young age. Eventually, Aurora had plucked up the courage to walk forward and clumsily grab Bolt's hand._

 _That's when the spark happened._

 _A flash and the two children were cast into the air, not injuring them, but throwing them on their backs a few feet apart. Neither child cried though – just simply lay there, stunned, both feeling a presence within them that had not been there before but unable to eloquently articulate what was happening due to their age._

 _Their parents ran over in an instant, and it was clear to them that something was seriously awry; scooping up the children, Aurora and Bolt's parents rushed to the Temple of Prophecies, where the most respected and knowledgeable members of the Time Chaser society resided._

* * *

"Elder Caleb!"

Bolt's father's voice echoed down the hallway of the Temple as they burst through the door and ran down the central corridor, which was empty given that it was the peak time of the day for the conference and negotiation meetings that were held on Voltfelis.

"Yes Leo" calmly intoned an elderly Time Chaser, seated on the floor at the front of the temple on an ornately patterned rug, reading from a well-kept, but clearly ancient book. His white beard rested gently on the floor, and his soft grey eyes brimmed with care and understanding, "A problem is not solved by rushing or speaking loudly my boy" he added.

"Sorry Elder" Leo (Bolt's father) ground to a halt at the head of the party as they reached the front of the Temple to stand before Caleb, the children still unresponsive and dazed in their mothers' arms, "It's just that-"

"Wait" Caleb's eyes widened as he dropped the book onto his crossed ankles, "The girls"

"Yes – that's what I am trying to say" Leo clarified, exasperated by the Elder and also gasping for breath, "They've been hurt, they were just playing and-"

"They aren't hurt child" Caleb corrected, urgently, "Ando" he turned to Aurora's father who stood looking confused and worried, "Go and fetch Elder Ellis, she's at the back in the storeroom"

"Yes Elder" Ando took one last harried glance at his daughter before racing off.

There was an anxious silence and pause between the remaining Time Chasers as they stood awkwardly in the candlelit gloom of the Temple, before Ando returned around a minute late with Elder Ellis, Elder Caleb's bondmate, in tow. She was a stately looking woman, tall and thin with cropped grey hair and a kind but intensely intelligent gaze. She seemed to flow in with her white robes billowing around her as if she were some sort of spirit.

She froze immediately when she saw the state of the two children.

"Are they OK?" Bolt's mother Jenna quivered with fear as she spoke, "Elders, will they wake up?"

"Can it be?" Caleb asked Ellis, ignoring Jenna's concerns.

Elder Ellis drifted ethereally over to Bolt and lay a mottled palm on the small child's forehead, but withdrew it quickly in shock.

"It is true my dear" Elder Ellis dipped her head reverentially and turned to Elder Caleb, "The Prophecy of The Two has begun"

"What do you mean?" Leo asked in a strangled tone, "You can't possibly mean that these two are…"

"Yes" Elder Ellis confirmed, "They are the two we have waited for destiny to bring us" Ellis motioned for the parents to lay the children on the same rug that Elder Leo sat. Jenna and Margo (Aurora's mother) meekly obliged. Once the children were settled, Elder Ellis gently knelt down beside them, and stroked their brows soothingly.

"The children are unharmed, but they will need rest and monitoring"

"Please!" Jenna walked forward determinedly, "What does this all mean?"

"Please sit" Elder Leo nodded to the pews adjacent to the middle walkway, and all four parents took a seat obediently.

"You all know the Prophecy of The Two, it is the only unfulfilled Time Chaser prophecy, a fixed point in time as foretold by my bondmate, Elder Ellis" he smiled respectfully at her before continuing, "It states that two children will be born that are destined to bond; their connection shall be so strong that it will one day save our people from the greatest loss imaginable, and bring permanent peace to our land."

"Bolt and Aurora" he continued, "Have done something only recorded once in our many centuries of written history, "They have formed a very premature bond, despite not being of age" he smiled down at the two children, "It is much more than a spark - it means that a small part of each other's being has now meshed with the other, permanently"

All four parents gasped audibly, and began to talk at once.

"How is this possible?!"

"They're two years old!"

"They don't even understand-"

"Now now" Elder Ellis rose to stand in front of the parents, and silence fell immediately, "This is beyond our control. Time itself has foretold this moment. These children will one day be our saviours. But that does not mean they cannot lead a normal life; prophecies do not come true by force. Allow them to live as the other children, let their bond grow naturally, and destiny will work as intended – we shall keep this knowledge to the Elders for now" she turned back to the children, who now grumbled slightly, starting to come around, "They will find their own way to their future, but it shall be together"

"Yes" Elder Caleb agreed, "They are part of each other now"

* * *

Bolt and Aurora's parents had done as the Elder's insisted and allowed the two girls to lead a fairly natural life. They found that with no encouragement or provocation, the two children naturally became good, close friends. There was an unspoken flow between them, as if they could predict the other's intentions, or sense the other's hurt and joy. For the next eight years, harmony reigned between the two families. The girls were given some idea as to their bond, and were taken regularly to the Elders to check their health, but other than that led a happy life integrated with the other children their age.

Bolt had garnered the gravity and specifics of the prophecy at an older age when she had been researching with Kate; as a child, she only knew that she was special, and that she and Aurora would do great things together.

Everything was shattered however, when the invasion hit Voltfelis.

* * *

 _Bolt's memories of the event, to the present day, remain sparse and confused._

A deafening roar woke Bolt from her bed. She felt crippling fear, and knew that it was a mixture of both her own fear, and Aurora's. She sat up and gazed out through the window-like opening in the wall of her mud shack room. She could make out the inside Aurora's hut from here as the dwellings were packed close together, but could see nobody in the house. Looking up she screamed as a wave of flying machines screeched across the sky – each one looking like a massive insect, with fat bodies and wings that mimicked a giant mechanical fly.

Then everything seemed to speed up.

Sounds of dying. Gunfire. Everywhere. Inside the house, in the streets, in the distance, across the road. Bolt was paralysed with dread as she heard loud footsteps scuttle around the hut. Hiding in the corner, she held her breath until they dissipated into the distance.

Summoning enough courage to stand, she looked out the opening in the window again to see a man, stood in Aurora's room now. He was clad in harsh, black gear that looked ready for warmongering. Nobody in Voltfelis wore anything like that as there was no armed forced. crack rang out as two blasts exploded from the weapon in his hand – a gun, she assumed, though Bolt had never seen one in real life - and this one was glowing with a terrible blue energy. Bolt ducked back down under the opening, tears streaming from her eyes as she desperately tried to avoid being seen. When she crept back up to look out again, the man had gone.

Then, suddenly, Bolt felt a terrible lacuna open within her. It was if a part of her had been cut out, and once it was taken away, all that left was the greatest longing she had ever experienced. With a growing panic, she tried to sense Aurora, but for the first time since she was two years old, Aurora was gone. Bolt curled into a ball and clutched her hands over her heaving chest; she felt as if the pain may kill her. She knew with certainty that she could never be happy again until she was whole, but equally, that she could never be complete without Aurora. But even at the age of ten, it was plainly clear to Bolt that Aurora was gone, forever. The man she had seen must have used the gun bathed in that cruel blue light against Aurora, though she had no idea at the time just how horrific that concept would turn out to be.

For some time Bolt lay there, motionless and defeated, and it may have been this inactivity which saved her from the massacre. When Elder Ellis burst into the room, Bolt did not ever stir, so resigned to death she was.

"Thank the stars" Elder Ellis breathed, "She's alive"

Bolt did not resist as she was swept up into the arms of another Time Chaser, a young adult male who she couldn't remember the name of. She vaguely recalled it was Ellis and Caleb's son.

"How mother?"

"She was not truly bonded to the other girl" Ellis shook her head sadly, "Her passing would have not killed her. We must save this child though – there may still be hope, but we must hurry, they are using guns laced with Death Energy"

As they left the mud hut, she could just make out the bodies of her parents, strewn on the floor in the gloom as she was rushed past unceremoniously. She could not bring herself to avert her eyes, the revelation only piled on to the crushing pain and suffocated her ability to act even more.

Bolt remained vaguely aware as they darted between limestone buildings and mud huts until they were once again racing down the middle of the Temple of Prophecies.

"But how mother – the prophecy has been broken without both the children; time has been meddled with by these invaders, our future has been blurred?!"

"Hope is all we have my son" Ellis sighed, "This child is special"

Bolt listened to the conversations as if she was far away, watching the life of another person.

* * *

When she next payed attention to her surroundings, they were huddled in the storeroom with Elder Caleb.

"We must send the child out of their reach – another time and place" spoke the younger man, Bolt now remember his name was Marco.

"It is forbidden" Ellis reminded him, "But we must make an exception, it is the only way"

"Then why can't we all go" Marco cried out angrily, "We shall all die here! No - not even that, dying from Death Energy is a fate worse than death!"

"It is not our job to intervene in the hand life has dealt us!" Elder Caleb scolded his son, "We do this for the sake of the prophecy, which as a fixed point of time should never have been interrupted by these invaders. The child may still fulfil it on her own - we have only interpreted the meaning through our own understanding; we have to accept our fate and allow her to find her own"

Marco nodded understandingly at his father as the Elders lay their hands on Bolt. She did not resist as the Time Energy surrounded her, and she was thrown far away from her home as a cacophony of gunfire filled the room.

* * *

With a heart full of dread, Bolt followed Bill and the Doctor down the hill, determined to not let history repeat itself.

"Forgive me Aurora" she whispered as they neared the Syllogist spacecraft.


	6. Chapter 6

Bolt caught up with the Doctor and Bill just in front of the Syllogist craft. A warm glow hit Bolt as the sunlight reflected off the surface. A false warmth, Bolt thought, the only thing to be found inside that building was cold, harsh logic.

Weighed down by her own memories and brimming with dread for her new companions, Bolt halted in between the Time Lord and the human, and looked up at the towering bulk of a spaceship. It felt proportionally bigger up close; their task all of a sudden seemed overwhelming.

"They'll realise we are here soon" Bolt stated in a low growl, "Any closer and we're out of safety"

"Good" the Doctor turned to grin at the new feline member to his entourage, "No time to waste!" He seemed almost jovial as he made a move to start going forward, "Now remember you must trust-".

"Wait" Bill's face was contorted with uncertainty, the sunglasses still present in order for her to see the Syllogist ship, "I feel like we should turn back"

"It's the DNA blocking" the Doctor explained, halting in his advance irritably and turning back to face Bill, "You're the only human here - like I said, it's built to make you averse to getting near"

"No - it's more than that" Bill continued, utterly convinced, "We _really_ have to go back!"

"You can fight this Bill!" the Doctor's tone sharpened as he scowled at the young woman, "I _know_ you've got more spark in you than that, and I'm an excellent judge of character" he added smugly reaching out for her hand to pull her forward.

"I'll die!" Bill exclaimed, swiping the Doctor's hand away and beginning to sound possessed. Her hands reached to clench into her hair in panic, "I'll die, and you'll die, and...we have to go back...we have to-"

"Bill, this isn't the time-"

The Doctor was cut off by Bill suddenly turning to run. However, she only succeeded in ploughing headfirst into Bolt, who had move subtlety behind the human.

"Get out of the way!" Bill flailed, ineffectually hitting Bolt on her chest and shoulders but being easily restrained by the stronger woman, "We all need to go now!"

"Pull yourself together!" The Doctor grabbed Bill's shoulders tightly and turned her around to face him, "Bill Potts is not one to quit - and she doesn't run when there's important work to do"

"But -" she began to protest.

"Fight it Bill! The Doctor shook her slightly, and then more vigorously, "Don't show me up in front of our new friend now" he quipped.

Bolt felt a familiar sense of unease tickle at her conscience at the use of the word "friend".

Bill struggled against his grip slightly and still occasionally shouldering back into Bolt, caught between two objects unwilling to move, but then, without warning, her appearance dramatically glazed over. After a few seconds, she relaxed, and her expression turned to confusion as her body started to go limp.

"What just happened?" She slurred, righting herself and turning around only to find herself unnaturally close to Bolt, making her jump back, "Jesus Christ what are you doing there...I feel…I feel like I have just gone cold turkey" she drawled, collapsing into Bill's shoulder, looking like she might throw up.

"Just a blip" Bolt clapped the younger woman on the back bracingly, "You're over the worst I think -" she steadied the woman to stand back on her two feet and smiled encouragingly.

Before Bill could thank her and try to recover from her flustered state, alarm sirens pierced through the air, accompanied by flashing lights and a flurry of the same type of creature that had chased them through the forest, all wielding death sticks.

"COME AT ME!" The Doctor stood a couple of metres ahead of Bill and Bolt, waving his arms in the air. There was not the slightest pretence that he was trying to hide.

"Maybe not" Bolt corrected her earlier assertion and placed a supportive arm around the still wobbly Bill as they were ushered inside.

* * *

The inside of the Syllogist ship could only be described as _practical_.

Starched white and steel were broken only by computer screens reeling off seemingly endless list of numbers. A couple of stasis tanks bubbled away with no current occupants, some nasty looking restraints stood against another wall, and at one end of the craft, the TARDIS sat captive, attached to what looked like a massive gun. The gun faced a hatch in the wall, which looked like it opened up to the outside, and the tip sparked with the same cold, blue energy that the death sticks did.

There was no warmth or emotion in any piece of equipment or any face, it was the most clinical place Bolt had ever seen.

The Syllogists were very similar in appearance to the mindless slaves which they created to do their dirty work. They were however, much taller and sophisticated. The stood on hooves, but rose to about six foot tall as opposed to their four foot slaves. The Syllogists also had human like hands and antenna, but sported one centralised eye whilst the slaves were blind. They were also far leaner and held an uncanny, all-seeing intelligence in their eye, as if they could see through time itself through it. They were also clad in white, starched, tight-fitting lab clothing.

Bill, the Doctor, and Bolt were shepherded onto a small runway, which stood slightly above the main room. The slave which led them in then deactivated its death stick, and walked down to join its comrades, all huddled together in a corner. The door slammed loudly shut behind them.

The three were left to address the roughly twenty Syllogists, who had all stopped working to stare at the newcomers. Nobody made any immediate movements.

"Their eyes are creeping me out" Bill whispered to the Bolt, hunching closer to her in fear, "It's like they are _calculating…_ me…somehow" she trailed off, "That's just rubbish, right?" she took off the sunglasses, the interior didn't have the same effect on her as the outside, as the aim was to keep people away from getting inside altogether.

"It's not as stupid as you think my friend" Bolt explained, "The legends of the Syllogists that I was taught as a child spoke that their eyes were symbolic of their far-reaching insight into the future, that they could calculate the odds of your life with a mere glance" Bolt glanced around urgently, tight-lipped, "Then again it could just be suspicion" she added, almost as if to reassure herself that wasn't the case.

Bill shuddered beside her new friend and Bolt left her arm around her protectively, her mind once again pulled back to all the people who she had lost involuntarily. Bolt was glad for the company, given that neither of them knew the alleged "plan", but she couldn't help but hold the girl a bit closer; she was merely a baby – she looked similar to Kate's age when Bolt had first met her. Bill couldn't be allowed to be hurt, not for something Bolt had dragged her into.

"What is your purpose?" the Syllogists spoke in unison. The slaves stood motionless in the corner, as if they could not move unless compelled.

"I come to give you what you want" the Doctor stated, plainly. He walked forward to address the room from his elevated position, "I have what you need"

"Why is he talking like that?" Bill whispered.

"You must speak to the Syllogists factually" Bolt clarified, "Lies do not work and neither do emotions"

"Do you mean the Time Chaser?" the Syllogists replied.

"Yes" the Doctor stated, "You only require one of us for your experiment to work"

The Syllogists fell silent for a moment, as if working out an equation in their heads.

"Hive mind" Bolt eyed Bill knowingly, seeing the human's confused expression from the corner of her eye, "They think collectively with a pooled intelligence"

This did nothing to settle Bill, who now looked queasier than she had done outside.

"We shall take the Time Chaser" the Syllogists decided, "You may observe"

"Wait, Doctor?" Bill's expression could have burned a hole in the Time Lord's back, as if she hadn't actually expected him to go through with what he was saying, "You're just going to give her up?!" she charged forward to grab him by the arm, "And let them wipe out ALL HUMANS?" her voice raised in disbelief. Oddly, it was hard to tell which action disappointed her more, "There's no twist?!"

Bolt stayed silent, thinking and considering what was happening as if she were one of the Syllogists.

She didn't feel panicked as she should do by what was happening, but yet she was unsure whether or not she could truly trust the Time Lord.

"We cannot overpower these Syllogists by force" the Doctor continued to speak in short statements, which Bolt was sure was for the Syllogists to intentionally overhear, "If they take the Time Chaser, I can survive"

"Her name is Bolt!" Bill snapped.

 _She was sure she could trust the girl though._

"Take the Time Chaser" the Syllogists ordered the slaves, who in a flurry were scuttling up the stairs with their weapons glowing a sickly blue, and just as fast coercing Bolt down towards an unfriendly looking booth with strong, cuffed restraints. They sprung open with the press of a few buttons, and then closed uncomfortably around her wrists as she was pushed in, back first. The slaves then grouped back together and stood motionlessly a few feet in front of Bolt.

 _And the girl trusted him._

"I don't believe you" Bill's eyes were filling with tears now, as she desperately tried to grab the Doctor's attention. He was refusing to meet her gaze, and stared unfeelingly out towards the gun which his TARDIS was attached to, "She doesn't deserve this!"

 _Emotions. This would mean nothing to the Syllogists._

"Initiate the final phase" the Syllogists spoke, turning all at once to operate different screens at once. The hatch at the other end of the ship began to open as an ominous whirring sound emanated from the gun. Bolt could feel the restraints around her wrists beginning to heat up, "Countdown for five minutes"

"Doctor?!" Bill was near hysterical now, her eyes flashing sorrowfully over to Bolt who was beginning to squirm uncomfortably as her wrists burned hotter and hotter. Shaking her head, she made to run down the stairs to help the Time Chaser. The Doctor made no effort to stop her, but Bolt could swear he saw a nervous twitch just grace the corner of his eye as the human skidded to a halt in front of the slaves, who activated the horrendous blue death sticks to stop her getting any closer.

"No!" Bolt yelled, struggling to talk as the pain intensified and spread up her arms.

"I'm sorry Bolt" Bill was distraught, "I'm sorry-"she sniffed, instructively learning forwards.

The human leapt back as one of the slaves swiped their weapon at her. Bolt could just about open her eyes enough to see a flash of panic in the Doctor's eyes.

"Go back" Bolt ordered through gritted teeth, "You can't help" she added, copying the Doctor's style of speech, which earned her an upturned lip from the watchful Time Lord, "They are going to complete the experiment" she managed, as she began to scream in pain.

Now the Doctor was unreservedly smiling, and if it wasn't for the unbearable wave of pain, Bolt would have felt a warm satisfaction. Bill looked up at him, confused.

"Four minutes" the Syllogists intoned.

"Yes you are going to complete the experiment" the Doctor laughed, spreading out his arms, "You're going through with it" he concluded triumphantly, "And that means you have miscalculated"

Every Syllogist head snapped round in unison. If they were capable of expressions, Bill would have said they were shocked.

"Explain the miscalculation" they demanded in their monotone chorus.

"You have determined that to destroy humanity at this exact point is less of an evil than the acts they will commit" the Doctor was openly smirking, "But in doing so, you create a paradox"

"What paradox?" the Syllogists asked, still infuriatingly emotionless in their response.

"That you _become_ a greater evil in the process" the Doctor expressive face was a pleasing antidote to the clinical Syllogists, "Once the process is complete, you will be responsible for the genocides of two people. The Time Chaser is also the last of her kind." The Doctor became even more animated, "If you destroy humanity, you would have to destroy yourselves. You would take away too much good along with the bad."

"Three minutes"

The Syllogists stood silently. No expression graced their singular eyes. They were calculating the Doctor's facts, but at an excruciatingly slow pace. Bill stood between her two friends; Bolt wrenching fiercely against her restraints, and the Doctor suspended anxiously as he waited to see if his gamble paid off. The minute passed in a blaze of anxiety.

"Two minutes"

"Doctor, say something!" she screamed, again trying to walk towards Bolt and again being ushered back with a wave of the slaves' evil weapons. It was a hopeless effort.

"They're working it out" he shook his head, "Anything else I add would just slow them down"

"But-!"

"Just say still!" he barked, swiping his hand across his chest as if to forbid movement, Don't say anything which might change the variables!"

"One minute"

The Syllogists suddenly turned back to the machines.

"Change mission parameters"

The gun that had been pointed outside of the ship started to pivot to face towards the interior of the ship.

Bill stood, mouth agape and wide-eyed, unsure if it had worked as the Doctor intended. From the look on the Doctor's face neither did he.

"Time Chaser not needed. TARDIS not needed."

The restraints around Bolt's wrists seemed to calm down, but did not release her. The Time Chaser panted as her head lolled forward. The slaves around her dispersed to stand back in their corner, and Bill rushed forward to lift her head. Barely conscious eyes stared straight back at her.

"Bolt?" she yelled, grabbing her arms and shaking them to no effect, "How do I get you out?!" Bill slammed her hand on the same buttons that the slaves had used to imprison Bolt, but it had no effect, "Oh don't tell me this is DNA whatever too?!"

"Set mission parameters to self-destruct"

"What?!" the Doctor screamed, clearly horrified, "No, no that isn't what I meant! You don't have to destroy anything!"

"This is not considered a valid factor"

"30 seconds"

Sensing that they were running out of time, the Doctor sprinted down to Bill to try to help, whipping out the sonic screwdriver and aiming it at Bolt's restraints to no effect.

"It's no use!" he cried, "Only they can unlock it, it's matched to their DNA. Unlock her restraints, you don't need her!" he commanded.

"This is not considered a valid factor"

" _Bill_ " he implored.

" _Go"_ breathed Bolt.

Bill's eyes brimmed with tears as the Doctor dragged her away past the Syllogists, who had moved to stand as a group and now stood motionless facing the gun, waiting for the self-destruction that they had initiated on the Doctor's advice, whether or not he had intended it.

Trading one genocide for another.

The Doctor practically threw Bill into the TARDIS with seconds to spare and pulled down the first level he could get his hand onto. The TARDIS was still attached loosely to the gun and had not been released either. Explosions and alarms blared in as the door slammed, and Bill saw the gun begin to emanate a blue light, bearing down on where the Syllogists gathered to wait their execution.

"Go, go, go!" the Doctor shouted at the TARDIS, "The ship has been set to destroy itself too"

Bill sullenly slumped in the corner on the floor, grief-stricken.

"I said go!" the Doctor yelled as a rumble shook the foundations of the TARDIS, almost knocking Bill into a pole headfirst.

"Look I know you're upset but please hold on!" the Doctor called back over his shoulder.

Bill half-heartedly grabbed on to the nearest railing, as tears cascaded down her face and she gritted her teeth against the lurching strength of the TARDIS forcefully tearing itself out of the gun and flying out the open hatch into safety.

The last thing Bolt saw before the roof began to cave in was the TARDIS flying out of the hole that was designed to harbour a gun to eradicate the human race, and that same gun turned 180 degrees, poised to strike down its creators.

Then the world turned blue, and then black as the roof started to fall.

* * *

The Doctor and Bill landed just outside the craft, in time for Bill to burst back out of the door and see the spacecraft collapse in on itself in a dramatic blue flash. Small fires erupted here and there, but large chunks of the genocidal machine lay in a tangled heap. The bodies of the mindless slaves created by the Syllogists lay in a scattered cluster, thrown out of the side of the ship. It was hard to tell if they were dead, or simply unwilling to move unless ordered. They would starve to death before moving on their own accord.

The Syllogists themselves were nowhere to be seen, their bodies apparently entirely eradicated by the machine.

"Why?" Bill turned, her face contorted in guilty agony, "Why did you put her in so much danger, with so little time?!" she fell to her knees, digging her hands into the ground before the wrecked ship.

"Bill I had no choice. I had to make them start the process so that the logic would hold; once they had started the act, it made them culpable" the Doctor spoke fast but the horrified glaze over his face belied his true feelings all too accurately, "I had to put them under pressure, make them think fast, I couldn't let them have time to think of a way around it, a way to support their original plan. I thought they would simply stop the process altogether, not commit suicide!" he looked down at Bill in despair, "Bill I didn't know they would DNA block her restraints"

"You gambled with her life" Bill shook her head, "You gambled with her life _and_ theirs"

"I know!" he snapped, "Do you think I feel good about convincing yet _another_ species into genocide"

"Another?!" Bill frowned in disgust, "You've done this before?"

"You wouldn't understand" the Doctor dropped his head, "War is terrible Bill"

"But this wasn't a war" Bill stood now to face him, "There could have been another way"

When no reply came, she too dropped her head, and they stood in silence in shared mourning.

The quiet was broken by a shuffling noise under a large portion of roof that stood bent almost into a triangle shape not far from where they were standing.

"Stay back" the Doctor moved protectively in front of Bill and placed an arm over her body defensively, "Who knows what that gun was capable of"

But it was not a Syllogist hand that appeared from under the wreckage, but a seemingly human-looking one.

The Doctor and Bill watched cautiously as an arm followed the hand, and then a female head, bedraggled and dirty.

"What the?" the Doctor started, but Bill had already run unreservedly towards the struggling figure.

"We have to help her Doctor!" she cried back.

Bill caught up to the woman, who had managed to drag herself up onto her elbows, her blonde hair in a dirty mop and eyes red raw from the dust and debris. With the Doctor not far behind her, the pair helped the mystery woman out from under her accidental shelter. She was unsteady on her legs and her wrists were red raw.

"I don't believe it!" the Doctor grinned manically, and the woman, who looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties, looked up with bright blue eyes and smiled back.

"The shutdown freed my wrists, I was lucky" she nodded to the almost impossibly fortuitous piece of the spaceship which had saved her from being crushed. She managed to stand up straight and brush off her arms as best as she could. The loose clothing she wore hung off her as if it belonged to an older brother.

"You mean?" Bill's eyes lit up with comprehension.

"It's me Bill" Bolt reassured her, "The signal is gone, I'm back to my natural form", she brushed a hand through her matted curly hair, "Though it's been a while, I think I need to clean-"

Her self-depreciation was cut off by Bill happily flinging her arms around her new friend, Bolt was caught by surprise, and then gingerly returned the hug, not quite sure how to handle it.

"Never again" Bill growled at the Doctor over Bolt's shoulder, hitting him with a voice swimming in bottled anger. The Doctor merely threw up his hands in submission; it was hard to argue against that one. Bill could see the relief in his eyes though, and softened; the day had been hard enough.

"So" she said, disentangling herself from Bolt who seemed happy to have regained her personal space, "What now?"

"Well" Bolt sighed, "I can't really go anywhere. It takes a while for Time Energy to build up naturally in my system, and that signal has been blocking it all this time" she gazed longingly at the wreckage, "Plus all my leads just died with that ship. I don't know where to go either"

"Yeah, I figure that's "my bad"" the Doctor made air quotes around the words, which only earned him a single disappointed raised eyebrow from Bill, "But I may have a solution"

Bolt looked wary.

"I have some friends who encountered this technology before – the MURDER devices, the death sticks, this death energy" he rambled, "It's turned up a few times across history, right?"

"Yes" Bolt conceded, "I'm hunting a particular strand of it though, the one that was created and is maintained by my people's genocide"

"But with the lack of any other leads, that's a good start right?" Bill chimed in.

"Well" Bolt was reluctant to agree, her ingrained fear of losing more friends rising up like a spectre, "Yes, but how would I-"

The Doctor, who had moved back to the TARDIS as Bolt was speaking, creaked open the door as an invitation, grabbing the attention of both the women who turned to look at him.

"Now don't go pretending you're going to go ask that bunch of xenophobes for shelter right?" he spread his arm out majestically, "I think there's a reason we met"

Bolt looked back towards the forest that separated where they stood from the human settlement that despised her, then back to the inviting faces of her new companions.

"Ok" she agree, defeated and riddled with trepidation, "Who are these people?" she asked, as she took her first step onto the TARDIS

"Oh I think you're going to like them, both of you!" he added, "They're you're kind of people" he muttered mischievously.


	7. Chapter 7

"I've always wondered what a TARDIS looked like from the inside" Bolt mused, "I've only ever seen it in books"

The Doctor looked less than impressed by her reaction, as if he was expecting more.

"This one seems quite extravagant" she continued, running her fingers across the edge of the central console, "We were always told they were just tools to illegally meddle with time" she ascended the staircase to the upper level under the Doctor's scrutinising glare and stopped to admire a bookcase, "It seems they rather simplified things"

"Aren't you going to lecture me?" the Doctor challenged, dashing to follow Bolt up the stairs and stand next to her, "If you're not going to gasp in wonder or ask me how I fit all this in here that is…" he trailed off, grinning impishly.

"I know how a TARDIS works" Bolt shrugged, "And lecture you about what?"

The Doctor's joy evaporated instantly, and he turned serious for a moment.

"Your people eschewed violence at all costs, to the point of their own extinction" he explained, in a low tone, "You haven't even _mentioned_ what just happened!"

"You mean the Syllogists right?" Bolt turned, her blue eyes remaining calm as a gentle ocean as they met the Doctor's own.

"You didn't even react" the Doctor whispered, "That's not what normally happens when someone witnesses a _mass suicide_ "

Bolt picked up an old book from the shelf and examined the cover, smiling once she recognised the symbol on the front.

"The crest of the Panthereon race" she smiled, "I haven't seen that in years" she graced her fingers over the cover gently, "Doctor, I might have been born into the Time Chaser society, and it's true I have inherited most of their memories and customs…" she held the book up to him, "But from the age of ten I was raised by my adopted family – a very different people"

The Doctor took the book from her and flicked slowly through the pages, nodding in understanding.

"A proud warrior race" he confirmed.

"So I understand why you did what you had to do" Bolt placed a reassuring hand on the Doctor's shoulder, and then nodded off to the centre of the room, "I'm not the one you need to speak to"

The Doctor hadn't even noticed Bill come in. Now the elation of Bolt's survival had passed, it was clear she was still not content with the Doctor's justification of what had just happened. From the grimace that engulfed the Doctor's face, it was also clear that he knew he hadn't dealt with her reaction very well.

Silently, he handed back the book to Bolt, who became politely occupied with reading it whilst turning her back on the centre of the room.

Bill was stood by the main console, looking sadly into a screen which displayed the wreck of the Syllogist spacecraft.

"You have to let it go" the Doctor stated softly.

"Why didn't you try another way?" Bill didn't look up from the screen, "You still haven't explained that"

The Doctor sighed heavily. He had lived through far too many tragedies to try and explain every one; each one blending in to the other, dulling the pain of the next one. But Bill – she was untainted by this kind of violence. Looking at her, the Doctor could almost remember what it had felt like the first time he saw something like this; the look in her eyes alone threatened to pull him down into the depths of her reaction.

Innocence could be cruel when betrayed, leaving behind only the remains of the comfortable shelter that ignorance had built for you as a memento of what you had sacrificed for stark realism.

He had to try to rebuild that safety for her, if only enough to keep her afloat.

"Sometimes you have to make a decision Bill" he didn't attempt to move, or to breach the space between them, "Waiting can mean you lose that chance. After that, there might not be another way"

"How is what you did any better than what they were doing?"

That one stung. Bill looked almost ashamed as she spat it out.

"You know why" he breathed, "You know I didn't want that to happen" he cocked his head to one side, "And if you don't know, then why are you here?" he asked.

Bill finally looked up from the screen, taken aback by his short manner.

"Because I _trust_ you" she admitted, seeming hurt by the accusation.

"Then why ask?" he pulled down a lever, spun a dial, and hit a button. The TARDIS whirred into life as they began to leave. The screen that Bill had been watching turned black, "If what you say is true, you should already know the answer"

Bill looked at him blankly before tutting and storming off down one of the passageways.

The "talk" had gone better than he expected.

"Now" he declared, rushing around and attending to the TARDIS as if the preceding conversation hadn't happened, "Let's see where I'll find you this time"

Bolt turned to peer over the edge of her book, before silently returning to the comfort of the pages, wondering at the strange dynamic between the Time Lord and the human.

* * *

 _ **London – Year: 1899 –Time: 13:30**_

"How long do you bleedin' need?!"

Jenny's voice rang shrilly through the transmitter on Vastra's wrist, followed by a few dull thuds and the tell-tale swish of a katana blade slicing through the air.

"Patience my love!" Vastra yelled back into the device, "I'm almost there!"

In truth the Siluarian was not feeling very tolerant of the delay herself. The system was proving a lot harder to hack than she had anticipated. Vastra hit what she hoped to be the last few buttons on the keypad and slammed down on the key to execute the code.

She was stood inside a pentagonal control room facing the point, with various keypads and screens surrounding her from her left and right. What was more unusual was that the complex was underground, and until today, a very well-kept secret.

But nothing stayed hidden very long from The Great Detective.

There was a pause as the computer attempted to execute the commands that Vastra had entered. The technology was of course, way too advanced for the time period it had inexplicably turned up in. From the start of her investigations, Vastra had been certain of alien influence, and in a few seconds, she was hoping to confirm this for certain.

She paused to look at the limited surveillance footage that covered four key points of the base. It was simplistic in design, but excellently engineered. Metal grill flooring ran out in straight lines from three points of the pentagon – at the two front sides adjacent to the point, and straight out the back. All three tracked back to the surface. Directly parallel underneath the walkways and down their respective staircases, more metal grills ran into the room directly beneath this control room. It was a storeroom, full to the brim not only with these "death stick" weapons, but various other devices fuelled by this awful, death-driven energy. Strax was currently down there guarding the stash to stop any of them being retrieved by the current owners of the base.

It has been one of those devices which had made Jenny's father incurably ill last year. Vastra had destroyed it, and it had taken a week for her to recover from the aftershock. It had taken even longer to win back Jenny's forgiveness for placing herself in so much danger.

As if compelled by thought, her wife backed into view on one of the cameras, holding back a hoard of humanoid creatures with her impressive swordsmanship on one of the upper walkways. It was hard to make out on the screen, but their skin was a fierce, azure blue, and they were cloaked in gowns of an even deeper blue. They fought back ineffectually with quarterstaffs, occasionally getting a hit on the young human. Vastra knew Jenny could cope, but she couldn't help but feel itchy with agitation. What was taking so long?

Suddenly, every computer screen in the room turned black. The security footage cut out. Vastra held her breath for a moment.

Then the alarms started.

The screens flashed from red to blue, with a large exclamation mark plastered across every centre.

"Outside influence detected" a grainy voice announced, "Initiate emergency protection protocols. Please remain calm. This is for your own safety."

"What?!" Vastra leapt onto the keypad, desperately trying to reverse what was starting, "That's impossible – I cloaked the data perfectly"

"Your co-operation is appreciated"

"Wait, it's trying to _protect_ me…" Vastra's thoughts sprinted rapidly from conclusion to conclusion as she ran a scan over the keyboard using the device on her wrist, "The hack didn't complete?! Then what is causing…"

"Lockdown initiating. Detaching upper walkways. Deadlocking store. Activating password protection"

"No, not the walkways!" Vastra cried, knowing that Jenny was still stood on one fighting. The camera footage was still down, the Silurian couldn't be sure if she'd managed to overpower her attackers yet.

"Invalid command. In case of invasion, removing access to main control room is designated as: SAFETY CRITICAL."

Vastra couldn't help thinking that if that robotic voice was a person, she would have ripped its throat out already.

"Jenny!" Vastra frantically spoke into the transmitter, "Jenny you have to get out of there!"

"Va….tra…." the signal cracked as if being interfered with, "Can't…."

An almighty crash mixed with the sound of static, and then the signal from Jenny cut out altogether.

"Upper walkways detached"

For a few grim seconds Vastra allowed herself the luxury of shock, suspended motionless in the room before the ensuing chaos knocked her back into the present.

"No!" she slammed her fingers into the transmitter, but couldn't reconnect to her wife's signal. A deep nausea threatened to overwhelm her, but Vastra knew she had to remain calm. If she lost her composure like she had done in Trenzalore, she would doom them all.

For now, she just had to assume that Jenny would be ok, and try not to surrender to the all-too-familiar fury that stalked through her nerves. Threatening Jenny had always been the quickest route to allow her once legendary temper to pounce and unleash its full violent potential. But there was still a chance she might be able to salvage the situation yet. The beast would have to wait.

Thinking fast, she switched the frequency. In her preoccupation with her wife she had forgotten about her other erstwhile companion.

"Strax?"

"We are under fire!" the enthusiastic reply was a small relief; at least she had some help.

"Strax what's happening down there?"

"I am hoarding the weapons for our GREAT ATTACK" he proclaimed proudly.

"You have to get out of there" Vastra ordered, but not before rolling her eyes with exasperation, "The system is…"

"Storeroom deadlocked" the hateful computerised voice chimed with terrible prescience.

"I am unable to leave my confinements" Strax confirmed, "Shall I try force?" he asked hopefully.

"Password protection activated. Emergency protection protocols complete" the computer announced. Almost simultaneously, the alarms stopped blaring. The computers remained black and powerless, "Please await extraction. A backup team has been hailed. Expected arrival time of TWO hours"

Vastra's thin veneer of forced composure was beginning to tear at the seams when the sound of a blaster ripped through the air. She jumped and threw herself to the floor, heart pacing hard against her scaled chest, before she realised the sound had come from her transmitter.

"I'm sorry" the sound of the automated system also carried through the link from Strax's room, "I can confirm that" at this the system played back the recorded sound of the blaster, "Is not the password. For your own safety, password attempts are now locked for 30 SECONDS"

"What sort of system is this?" Vastra hissed, "How is this helpful?"

"Shall I try again?" Strax asked earnestly.

"No Strax!" she implored, "I command you to sit and wait for rescue, do not discharge any further weapon. Save power by keeping the transmitter in standby mode"

There was silence in which Vastra was certain Strax was weighing up the pros and cons of pretending to have not heard the command, before his voice rang loudly back through the transmitter.

"Very well Ma'am" he confirmed, cutting off his communications link for now.

Vastra let out a deeply held breath. The outward commotion had stopped for now, but it had left behind so many levels of disaster. Now she was alone, in a silent, useless locked room, with the loud remonstrations of her own angry thoughts as her only company.

She counted the thirty seconds down in her head to relax, and then tried the password which had originally allowed her access to the room earlier. She suspected the emergency password would not be the same, but it was worth trying.

"2805" she spoke.

"I'm sorry. I can confirm that 2805 is not the password. For your own safety-"

"I know. I KNOW!" Vastra shouted angrily.

"Please do not attempt multiple password entry. This will further delay when you can make another password atte-"

"Oh just-" she balled her fists and slammed them into the nearest console, "Just-"

"Please do not attempt multiple-"

"My wife could be dead! My friend might never come out of a storage room! For pity's sake _I_ might not even get out of here alive!"

"Please do not-"

"DO YOUR WORST!" Vastra screamed, tearing gashes into the console and punching holes through fragile keypads in pure rage as the full force of the stress coursed through her veins.

After her rage felt spent, Vastra stood poised, muscles tense and primed, eyes wide and wilde, and breath panting. She was almost daring the system to challenge her. Various wires lay exposed and sparking, and one screen was smashed beyond repair. A buzzing sound had inexplicably started coming from one of the consoles, and wouldn't stop. There was a small pause where only this incessant noise and the sound of Vastra's laboured breathing could be heard. Then the machine piped up again.

"I'm sorry. I can confirm that DO YOUR WORST is not the password. For your own safety, password attempts are now locked for 546 days, 4 hours, and 3 minutes"

Vastra bared her teeth, and the room felt the full force of a Silurian with little left to lose and no access anyone who knew how to calm her down.

If the voice had been a person, there would not have been much left.

* * *

 _ **London – Year: 1899 –Time: 13:20**_

"Underground eh?"

The Doctor's Scottish drawl practically bounced with excitement. The rumbling of the TARDIS had been enough to coax Bill back out with curiosity, whilst Bolt still stood on the upper level, leant over the railing.

"Who are these people?" asked Bill, her tone still sullen.

"Old friends" the Doctor answered distractedly, trying to control the TARDIS as she descended, "If you need something investigated, they're your people" he looked up at Bolt, "Will be the perfect place to start for our friend up there"

Bolt smiled back uncertainly.

"So, you staying like that?" Bill called up, "You know, looking _human_ "

The Doctor visibly cringed at Bill's human-centric assumptions.

"This is what a Time Chaser looks like" Bolt clarified, "Like I said, my condition…it's a bit like being-"

"A werewolf, yeah, gotcha" Bill beamed up at the other woman. Bolt remained rooted in trepidation at the unfolding situation, but manged to offer a small nod back, which Bill appeared to appreciate.

"We're here" the Doctor smiled, and with a shudder and a jolt, the TARDIS landed. The Doctor turned a monitor to look outside, "Looks like some sort of base" he pushed out his lower lip and swung his head back and forward whilst thinking, "Probably not dangerous" he concluded, and then made for the door. Bill followed on his heels and Bolt trailed nervously at the rear, descending the stairs and shutting the TARDIS door behind her.

Admittedly, there wasn't much to see. They were on a lower walkway made of metal grating leading in a straight line to what looked like some form of storeroom. Muffled sounds echoed in the distance, and another walkway ran parallel above them, but there was nobody in the immediate vicinity.

"Are you sure they're here?" Bill looked unconvinced, "This place looks deserted"

"I'm positive" the Doctor ran forward and ran his sonic screwdriver through the air, snapping it back to apparently take some form of reading, "We aren't the only lifeforms in here, that's for sure"

"Then-"

Bill was cut off by sirens blaring through the base. The trio threw their hands over their ears against the sound.

"Doctor!" Bill shouted – the noise nearly unbearable.

"Back to the TARDIS" he shouted, beckoning the women to follow him.

"Upper walkways detaching"

"Move!" the Doctor looked up and rapidly changed direction, changing his mind once he saw the trajectory of the upper walkway.

The three ran forward towards the storeroom as the upper walkway detached from the end closest to the storeroom and began to fall down. Sweeping over their heads, it hinged from the back end but was stopped from falling down too far by the top of the TARDIS. It then began to tilt and bend under the strain.

Bill and the Doctor threw themselves into a roll and made it to the door of the storeroom, which opened with some coercion from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and allowed them inside. But as Bolt came behind them, a small human rolled down the failing walkway and crashed on top of the Time Chaser, pinning her flat to the floor. Before Bolt could recognise what was happening, the storeroom door slammed shut, with a huge metal bolt cutting across the door.

"Storeroom deadlocked"

There was not enough time for the horror of this to sink into her mind however, before she found herself flipped over and straddled, a katana pointing in the direction of her throat. Above her sat a nimble, lithe brunette, two hands expertly holding the sword mere inches away from her.

"Don't move" commanded the woman.

"Password protection activated. Emergency protection protocols complete" rang out a computerised voice. The alarms immediately ceased.

The two sat there in silence, neither willing to surrender before the sound of a blaster from inside the storeroom made them both jump, nearly skewering Bolt on the end of the woman's katana.

"By the stars!" Bolt gulped audibly, the weight of the human not nearly as heavy as the implications of the weapon she gripped so fiercely.

Her condition, as bestowed on her by the Pathereon race who raised her, could be difficult to control in times like this. Strong emotions always tended to set it off. She felt her body urging her to mutate, to turn into the great cat and throw this intruder off with ease. But she resisted, knowing that escalating a fight with a good swordsperson was a poor move.

Bolt took slow breaths, and tried to focus on the face of her attacker, rather than the sharp object pointed at her throat. She was a remarkably pretty human, like Bolt she looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties (although Bolt's demeanour belied her true age of 150). Her face was contorted with anger and greyed with exhaustion. Bolt tensed and relaxed her fingers twice to relieve some nervous tension, and met her assailant face to face.

"Who are you?" the human demanded, her nerves frayed and ready to snap. She had the look of a woman who had dealt with too much in one day to have any time left for patience.

"My name is Bolt" the Time Chaser replied, trying to remain still but feeling anxious sweat start to bead on her forehead.

"How did you get in here" the brunette shuffled on top of Bolt, her arms subtly shaking with the itch to strike, "What do you know about The Azure Guard?"

Despite her current predicament, Bolt felt a rush of excitement; The Azure Guard had been a name which cropped up in her years of investigations with Kate and she knew they had a link to the MURDER weapons and the death energy. They had thought it was a dead end at the time, but it was possible they had been mistaken.

Bolt couldn't help but hope that this woman might know something new. If she ever got off of her chest, that is.

The rush of excitement must have been noticeable on Bolt's face, as her captor gripped the hilt of the sword a little tighter with irritation.

"So you _do_ know something, eh?!" she growled through gritted teeth, "Well-"

A sound came from the upper levels of the building. It was hard to tell, but it sounded like a fight; the human was instantly distracted by it. Masked by the walls, muted roars and tearing noises started to punctuate the uncomfortable stalemate between the two women. Bolt watched with interest as her opponent relaxed her grip, taking the sword in one hand to stare upwards. With her neck free from threat, Bolt craned her neck backward to look up as far as she could from where she lay on the floor. She could only make out the edge of what she assumed was some form of control centre.

"Vastra!" the woman cried, placing her free hand over her mouth.

Snapping her head back, Bolt seized her chance, and bucked her hip to raise up her knees and throw the stranger off to the side. The woman fell with a clatter, the katana falling to the floor. Bolt jumped up to her feet, feeling bruised, but hands poised ready to fight. However the woman was ignoring her now and desperately trying to get a transmitter round her wrist to work. It looked like it had taken a beating from the earlier fall. There was a desolate loss in her eyes as she aimlessly fiddled with the broken gadget.

Bolt knew that look. It took her straight back to the night Aurora was brutally ripped away from her life. She felt a sudden burst of sympathy for the woman, and walked forward slowly to try to offer her hand to help the human up.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I know less about this place that you do" she promised reassuringly, still advancing with caution, "Maybe we can help each other?"

The young woman looked up in surprise, as if she had forgotten Bolt was there altogether. She wore a leather cat suit, and her hair was pulled back into a practical bun. She examined Bolt for a minute, and fears apparently defeated, took Bolt's hand and stood up, brushing herself down.

"I'm sorry" she looked down at the katana guiltily and bent to pick it up and sheath it, "Perhaps I should start again" she held out a hand in greeting, "Jenny, Jenny Flint"

* * *

 _Inside the Storeroom_

As the storeroom door slammed behind Bill and the Doctor, the overwhelming sense of relief at escaping had been replaced with the crippling realisation that they had left Bolt behind.

"No, no!" the Doctor turned and hit his palm against the door, running the sonic screwdriver over the lock.

"Storeroom deadlocked" chimed the speaker.

"Well that explains it" the Doctor looked at the screwdriver ruefully and placed it back in his pocket.

A mumbled voice could be heard the other side of the big storeroom, obscured by a large support column in the middle of the room.

"Password protection activated. Emergency protection protocols complete" declared an automated voice, silencing the alarms.

"We're not alone" whispered the Doctor, "Keep out of sight"

Bill nodded and hunched up against the contents of the room, breathing lightly.

"What _is_ all this?" asked Bill, eyeing the piles of storage cargo tellingly.

They turned to fully consider the boxes piled up around them in the dimly lit room. Stacks and stacks of official-looking boxes covered in an array of warnings were pushed into every available space. Peering into a half-opened one, the pair gasped as they gazed into a box of seemingly deactivated death sticks, the same as the ones the Syllogist slaves had carried.

"How many?" Bill breathed, horror infecting her usually light tone.

The sound of a blaster shot loudly reverberated around the room and tore them rudely out of their conversation. The two huddled back down behind the boxes before it became clear that no more shots were coming.

The Doctor edged forward carefully, closely wrapping around the central beam to look around to the other end of the room. Bill waited behind, feeling skittish and helpless as the Doctor moved closer to the danger on the other side of the room.

She was therefore utterly shocked when the Doctor cried out happily, standing and raising his hands out in triumph.

"I should have known it was you old friend!" he laughed, "Bill come over here, it's alright"

The Doctor disappeared round the other side of the beam, leaving Bill with only a moment to consider what to do before huffing her exasperation and bounding forwards in his wake.

What came into view was not what she had expected.

Stood by the opposite exit was a short, brown creature, clad in ostentatiously thick armour, and with a bald, bulbous head. He held a huge futuristic rifle, and seemed to be in a state of constant frown. Around him lay even more boxes, although it looked as if he had started to rip them open, as their various contents lay scattered across the floor. They were weapons of all shapes and sizes, and they all look deactivated.

"Ah my rescue party!" he gleefully declared, "Does this mean I can move now?"


	8. Chapter 8

Once Jenny had recovered some semblance of coherent thought and regained some of her senses, it was clear that whilst she was tolerating Bolt's presence she was still very wary of her. The human visibly stiffened after a moment and puffed out her chest, hands still hovering near her sword hilt.

"So, Bolt" she started, sounding less than convinced, " You still ain't told me how you got in here" she took a step closer, "Did you follow us?" She ventured.

 _'Us?'_ thought Bolt; she would be in a lot of trouble if there were multiple people as formidable as this woman to contend with. Trying to not let that observation distract her, Bolt tried to draw herself to her tallest height, unwilling to appear vulnerable, and replied as calmly as possible.

"No" Bolt held her hands up in supplication (whilst she wanted to hold her ground, she didn't want to needlessly escalate the situation), "We flew in"

Jenny's raised eyebrow and curled lip as nodded disbelievingly suggested she did not deem this a worthy answer.

"Vastra was _certain_ she sealed the doors behind us" the human challenged, "And she is rarely wrong".

 _'There's that Vastra name again'_. Bolt noted. An odd name - certainly not a traditional human name as far as the Time Chaser's limited knowledge was concerned. The woman was obviously preoccupied with this " _Vastra_ ", which meant that whoever they were, they were important. Bolt made a mental note of this before continuing.

"We didn't use the door" Bolt replied simply and truthfully. This earned her an incredulous laugh from Jenny.

"Y'think you're funny?" the human asked rhetorically, "Or is y'er excuse just that poor?"

Bolt winced; perhaps she should have elucidated a _bit_ more than that to sound more believable. Now she just looked a little hapless, and she had nothing more to offer in the way of explanation without making herself more vulnerable.

' _So much for saving face'_ she internally bemoaned.

"So there's more than one of you?" Jenny questioned, sensing that Bolt was not going to react to her previous remark.

Jenny was seemingly innocuous in her intent, but Bolt had noticed that Jenny had started to slowly circle the Time Chaser and the conversation was beginning to it feel like an interrogation. This wasn't how she had planned this introduction proceeding; she had rather hoped they might cooperate a little easier than this rather than sizing each other up. Bolt now regretted giving so much away in so little words already. It put her in a bit of a quandary; a small lie now might be a big stumbling block later if they eventually decided to work together, but telling the truth could put Bill and the Doctor in danger.

Ironically, things had been simpler when Jenny had been sat on top of her. Bolt was starting to regret kicking her off.

In the end, she figured admitting she wasn't alone could do little harm seeing as though her companions were barricaded behind a huge metal door. There wasn't much Jenny could do to hurt them from here, and it might even out the negotiations if Bolt could boast a little support, no matter how unobtainable it was.

"Yes" Bolt confirmed, "There are three of us"

"So you're telling me all three of you got in here and past me without me even seeing you?" Jenny inquired sceptically, "As if I ain't been stood right in front of the bleedin' entrance for the last-"

"Look, I _know_ it seems stupid" Bolt implored, " But we came here in that" she pointed towards the TARDIS, which sat unharmed but buried under the hanging, buckled upper walkway, which in comparison was looking very worse for wear.

Immediately, Bolt regretted her decision as the woman didn't react at all, but stared at the scene, stupefied. It was going to be even harder to gain her trust now; she must think the older woman was mad. It was not going to be easy to sell a small blue Police box as a mode of transport for multiple people.

"It's not as ridiculous as it seems" Bolt begged, wishing for Jenny to say something, even if it was in anger, "I assure you it's bigger-"

"Than it looks" Jenny finished.

"Right" Bolt admitted, worrying that her response had been too predictable. But as the human tore her gaze from the TARDIS and pivoted back to Bolt, all hostility had been wiped from her face. She looked gleeful, possibly even hopeful.

"You're here with the Doctor!" she beamed, eyes wide with wonder.

' _You idiot'_ Bolt mentally berated herself, _'This must be one of the people we came here to meet!'_

"I am, yes!" she nodded enthusiastically, though still secretly still disappointed in herself for not working out the connection earlier, "It would have been a lot simpler if we'd established that small fact first, don't you think?"

"Too right!" Jenny chuckled ruefully, "God you talk just like _'er_ " the human gestured up to the upper level and then became suddenly thoughtful; Bolt understood this to mean this _Vastra_ character, who remained a faceless enigma.

Bolt couldn't help but feel like she was flailing in mid-air; she had been thrust into this situation by a man she barely knew, on the vague premise that some (previously) unnamed strangers would be able to help her. Everything had then almost immediately upended, and now she was separated from her friends and stuck in a half-collapsed base in what could be any conceivable year in human history.

This was _not_ how Time Chasers thought or acted, and if the elders were around to hear of it, they would have been scandalised by her reckless abandonment of their core principles and unsurprised that everything was going wrong.

But then again, what was right? Had they even had a plan?

' _Maybe I have made a mistake'_ Bolt thought darkly, _'Perhaps solving this alone was the right option'_

"You alrigh'?" Jenny took a step forward, bending her head to try and catch Bolt's downcast eyes.

' _What business did you have involving other species? It didn't work with Kate…and now…"_

"Miss?!" Jenny exclaimed, the concern in her voice bleeding through.

Bolt jolted out of her own ominous thoughts in a jarring jump; none of this solved her present predicament.

"Sorry" she bowed her head in apology, turning her attention back to the younger woman, "Everything has just gone too quickly" she clarified sadly.

"Tell me about it!" Jenny seemed too preoccupied to catch the sorrow in Bolt's tone and walked round her to stand facing the central structure, "It's jus' that, well, I need to get up _there_ " Jenny once again pointed up to what looked like a control centre, "And if the _Doctor_ can help…" she trailed off hopefully, it was apparent that Bolt had earned her immediate trust with the revelation about the Doctor.

' _He must mean a lot to his friends'_ Bolt mused.

The Time Chaser couldn't stand to let Jenny suffer any longer, as she clearly was distressed by her separation from _Vastra_. She resolved, for now, to try and help the situation as best as she could, and think about the larger problem later. But she would do it at her own pace – Time Chasers worked with logic and intelligence, not by running around the place like children.

The thought reminded her abruptly of where her erstwhile companions were currently stuck, as a reward of said juvenile behaviour.

"By the stars, we've left them in there!" Bolt tapped Jenny on the shoulder and motioned for her to follow to the storeroom, walking forward with purpose. They halted in front of the deadlocked door.

"In 'ere?!" Jenny asked dubiously, running her hand along the impenetrable door tentatively but searchingly. She eventually found what she was looking for and opened up a small hatch with a keypad and entered in the same number which had unlocked it earlier. It had no effect and only prompted the door to bark a small noise of rejection at the pair.

"Damn" Jenny shook her head, "I'm running out of ideas" she admitted, hitting the door with the palm of her hand in frustration, which also achieved very little.

The noise did however seem to prompt a scuffling from inside the chamber, followed by a desperate banging on the door from the inside. Jenny and Bolt ridiculously took a step back from the door, despite the inarguable reality that nothing was coming in or out of the room in a hurry.

"Hello?" a muffled but understandable male voice permeated through, "Bolt?"

"Doctor?" Bolt forgot her previous promise to be cautious and hammered back on the door, pressing her face up against the door, "Doctor is that you?!"

* * *

 _Inside the storeroom_

"Bill, this is Strax"

"Pleased to meet you boy! I must say, your helmet looks sturdy enough to withstand the perils of even the most ferocious war" Strax added enthusiastically, balling up his fist so it resembled a large potato.

Bill opened her mouth to protest the various points of contention in that sentence, when she was cut off by a sharp warning look and a raised hand by the Doctor.

"Don't bother Bill" he cautioned, "He's lived with Jenny and Vastra for years and he still can't figure them out"

"Jenny and… _what?_ " Bill's confused expression only appeared to give rise to the Doctor's mirth.

"You'll find out"

"Ah yes, the green one!" Strax declared happily, moving his squat body to adjust the communication device round his wrist, "She will want to know of my glorious recovery from certain doom!"

His face fell however when it was clear his device couldn't make contact with Vastra's. Dejected, he shoved his wrist at the Doctor expectantly.

"Can't _you_ fix it?" he asked simply.

The Doctor ran the sonic screwdriver over Strax's device, but quickly retracted it.

"There's nothing wrong with it Strax – the problem must be on the other end" he confirmed.

"Then the green one is in trouble!" Strax rigidly stood to attention, "She wouldn't disconnect transmissions on purpose!" he saluted the Doctor awkwardly, "Permission to launch a search party to locate her?"

"Slow down there Strax" the Doctor laid a steadying hand on Strax's armour, "I commend your enthusiasm but I don't see how we are getting out of this room"

"Why are you here?" Bill piped up, unwilling to be forgotten about, "What's going on here?"

Strax dropped his salute and pushed away the Doctor's arm, and turned to address Bill directly.

"Your armour marks you as a general of high rank!" he grinned approvingly, "So I will inform you of our tactical strategy" Strax plodded to one of the boxes around the room, tore open the lid unceremoniously, and pulled out a dormant MURDER device. It was one of the death sticks, but deactivated. Strax threw it to Bill, who only just caught it, earning her a disappointed tut from the Sontaran at her clumsiness. He pointed to the door they had entered from, "Careful boy! The fleshy one's father was killed by one of these _weapons_. The _lizard_ tends to get overly emotional when the _human_ is upset. She spent a wasteful amount of resources to investigate where the weapon that killed him had come from, and it led us down here"

Bill turned the weapon over in her hands slowly. It felt lightweight, and _cold_ in more ways than just temperature. It sent small chills through her elegant fingers. She couldn't imagine wielding one that was active, filled with the energy of some poor soul reliving their own death over and over again. The very thought made her want to lob the accursed thing as far away from herself as possible, but at the same time, she was fixated by the device. The idea was morbidly captivating, no matter how grim the implications.

"We then came across this wondrous hoard of weaponry and I was given the prized job of guarding it" Strax puffed his chest out proudly, "The _reptile_ went to recover data from upstairs, and the _pink one_ engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the occupants as a distraction"

"And then the lockdown" the Doctor finished, running the sonic screwdriver in an arc in front of his body, "There's an extraction team on the way – the sonic is picking up the signal from their ship" he snapped the device back to inspect it, "The estimate was two hours, but it looks like they're rushing – we need to get out of here fast – I don't want to see what these weapons look like armed" he walked over to Strax urgently and took him by the shoulders, "Is there any other way out of here?"

"I have studied the schematics, and from my _perfect_ memory, the only other way out of the storeroom is by _that_ " he pointed upwards and the Doctor's eyes followed to rest on a relatively small ventilation shaft, which only looked big enough to accommodate for a thin human.

The two men turned simultaneously to Bill, whose face contorted into exasperation before she slapped her thighs in disbelief.

"You can't be serious?"

Before the logistics of the plan could be debated, they were distracted by a loud thud on the other side of the door. All three looked temporarily terrified, before the remembered the friends that were locked out on the other side.

"Bolt!" the Doctor cried as if he has just remembered, which Bill suspected was indeed the case. The three rushed back and the Doctor started to beat on the door, "Hello? Bolt?"

"Doctor?" more knocking came through the other side, "Doctor is that you?" the now familiar voice of the Time Chaser shouted back, slightly muted by the door.

"Yes! Are you alone?"

"No, I have Jenny with me" Bolt replied levelly, "But we can't open the door from this side"

The Doctor cursed under his breath and bit his lip thoughtfully. Time was pressing on his nerves heavily, and they sorely needed a strategy that amounted to more than giving Bill a leg up into a dusty old pipe. He tapped his fingers impatiently against the door, willing inspiration into his head as Bill and Strax looked on helplessly.

"Doctor?" the voice behind the door inquired again, when no reply was forthcoming.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed with a spark. With urgency he grabbed at Strax's wrist and tapped a few buttons. When the device replied with a chorus of beeps, he laughed triumphantly.

"Yes, yes, yes!" he declared, holding up Strax's arm in victory, "I can connect to the TARDIS!" dropping Strax's arm unceremoniously, he slammed back into the door, "Bolt!"

"Still here" she responded.

"Listen, can you and Jenny get to the TARDIS?"

A pregnant pause followed.

"Maybe" came the response, "It's a bit… _obstructed_ " she clarified.

The Doctor grimaced silently, frustrated at the endless problems stacking on top of their current one.

"We have to try" he ordered, "We're going to send Bill up another way too, but we need a backup"

"Hey!" Billy protested, "I haven't agreed-"

"I need you to get to the TARDIS and open up its transmission features so I can talk to you directly" the Doctor cut Bill off with a silencing gesture behind his back, "We have a communication device in here but I guess Jenny's is broken too?"

"Completely destroyed" a higher pitched voice confirmed, presumably Jenny.

"Ok never mind. Bolt, do you know enough about a TARDIS to do what I've asked?" he asked optimistically.

Another loaded gap in conversation bored through the silence as the three waited anxiously for the confirmation they were all hoping for.

"I believe so" the reply came, but tellingly marred with uncertainty, "But I've only read about it in books"

Bill and the Doctor shared a doubtful exchange of raised eyebrows before the Doctor sighed back into the door decidedly.

"It will have to do – get going!"

He didn't wait for verification, but unshakably strode back towards the ventilation shaft and stood underneath it expectantly.

"Ok Bill" he commanded grimly, "Ready for lift off?"


	9. Chapter 9

Bill had suffered many indignities in her life.

As an adult it was usually due to her mother's constant unwanted questioning about her interest in men, despite all her hinting to the contrary. As a teenager the stand out had to be her first classic, tragic, melodramatic lesbian breakup - complete with tearful night time repeated listening of 80s and 90s power ballads. As a child, well, how could she forget that time when she tripped up and fell flat on her face in Primary School whilst playing kiss-chase, only to get chewing gum in her hair in front of Kathryn Smith (her very first crush)?

The list was pretty comprehensive across the generations of her life, and yet somehow, nothing quite matched up to the embarrassment of being unceremoniously boosted up a ventilation shaft by your Time Lord tutor and a short Sontaran stranger.

"How did you talk me into this?" She protested with an echo, her head now successfully enclosed within the ventilation's metallic confines.

"Would you rather sit down here and wait for an angry army to show up into a room full of deadly weapons?" The Doctor replied sarcastically, whilst simultaneously trying to push up through Bill's low top trainers and pulling at least three different muscles in the process.

"Alright, salty..." she grumbled, pushing through her elbows and wrists to help pull herself up into the horizontal, square pipe.

"Thought not - woah!" The Doctor braced himself as Bill veered to the right without warning.

"Sorry!" Bill apologised, struggling to find purchase on the stainless steel with her small hands, "Ok final push!" She confirmed, jamming herself into a more secure position and holding on to a protruding screw for leverage.

"Ready Strax?" The Doctor braced himself, "One, two, three!"

The pair heaved with almighty grunts as the young woman clambered up, finally getting her knee over the edge and then following with the rest of her body. A great sense of relief came with the realisation she was not going to be dropped on the floor; she hadn't even clocked that she was expecting that to be the outcome.

Now she was in the vent, she could understand why it had to be her to go up. Neither of the other two would have been able to manoeuvre around - it was certainly a tight fit. Bill fumbled around for the torch the Doctor had armed her with (miraculously seeming to materialise it from his coat, as if it was Mary Poppin's bag) and turned it on. Without it, she could only see as far ahead of her as the light from the opening below allowed, which was not more than a few feet.

And given how her voice was carrying, the tunnel was much longer than that.

"Alright" she shouted back, "So you say go forward from here?"

"Yes!" Bill could make out Strax's happy tone from beneath her, "Follow it until it turns in on top of itself and then ascend!" Bill could just imagine the alien fist pumping the air at that remark, "It should then go back the other way - you will be able to work your way to the top and commit to the brave rescue of our comrades!"

"Don't forget the comm device I gave you" the next voice was the Doctor's. Bill self-consciously ran her hand over the pocket which she had stored the small gadget in to check it was there. Yet another gift the Doctor had procured from his coat of wonders.

"Ok" she confirmed apprehensively, "Let's just get this over with"

"Tell me when you're at the top and you've found Vastra" the Doctor called after her, "Just push the button and talk, I've set the rest up for you"

"I'm not an elderly woman with a PlayStation Doctor- I think I'll manage" Bill shot back sassily.

But as she started to crawl through the vent, she could feel that confidence start to evaporate with every slide of the knee.

Brandishing the torch with one arm whilst trying to pull herself along with the other, Bill unevenly looked through the first vent. Creaks and groans accompanied her journey, and although she knew she was alone, the shadows cast by her torch started to look awfully lifelike. She no longer had the comfort of her friends to bolster her, and even though she wasn't exactly in need of a diet, she started to ponder if the fragile pipes could support her weight.

However she made it to the end of the first pipe unhindered, and just as Strax said, it bent over and above itself to go back in the opposite direction. Contorting her body uncomfortably, Bill managed to twist herself up and on to the next equally claustrophobic level.

One down, she just wished she had any idea of how many were to go.

* * *

Once the gentle rumbling of Bill's journey through the ventilation had faded out of hearing range, the Doctor allowed himself to attend to the more immediate matters of the roomful of illegal weapons, and the impending arrival of their unhappy owners.

"Ok Strax" the Doctor clapped his hands, "What's the plan?"

Strax was obviously delighted by the prospect of being consulted on tactical matters, and as the Doctor had hoped, had not come into this situation totally unprepared.

"Excellent move Commander" Strax complimented admiringly, "We must speed up operations with the imminent arrival of enemy forces! As a master tactician, I have already planned extensively for such a possibility"

Strax waddled over to the side of the room, where a sturdy looking brown military-style bag sat. It looked suspiciously innocuous. Strax lifted up the khaki covering, and proudly pulled out one of its inhabitants.

"Strax – I'm not sure that the answer is-" the Doctor started cautiously at the sight of what Strax held in his stubby hand.

"Nonsense!" Strax interrupted, brandishing the item higher and making the Doctor flinch in the process, "There has never been a better time for a well-placed grenade!"

The Doctor eyed the small oval object warily. It certainly wasn't a conventional grenade; it was circular rather than acorn shaped, and glowed a faint fluorescent green colour. This did nothing to alleviate the Time Lord's concerns however, and he found himself unconsciously walking backwards with his hands up.

"Does Vastra know about this?" he asked in a warning tone, as if checking with a child if they had sought permission from both their parents.

"Of course!" Strax confirmed jovially, tossing the grenade at the Time Lord, who squeaked nervously before catching the object clumsily, "It was all part of the " _strict instructions"_ I had to follow" he added disdainfully, making air quotes around the hated words.

The Doctor was finding it very hard to believe that Vastra had sanctioned any of this; she was usually the first person to try to curb Strax's worrying affinity for deadly weapons. But even he had to concede that Strax had been allowed to openly bring the bag into the facility. With extreme care, the Doctor dubiously scanned the grenade he held with the Sonic Screwdriver, and studied the reading. When he looked up, he could see Strax's expectant face grinning at him.

" _Electro-magnetic pulse grenades_ " the Doctor breathed in relief, feeling a little sheepish at his earlier reaction, "These are harmless to organic life"

"Yes, but they are _deadly_ to the circuitry of all of these particular weapons. I spent weeks building the exact reaction needed to fry every single one!" Strax chuckled conspiratorially, "That's after I found out the lizard wasn't going to let me keep the weapons we found here" he conceded in disappointment.

"But we can render them useless!" the Doctor finished excitedly, "I never thought I'd say this to you Strax– but these grenades are perfect!"

"Exactly!" Strax rubbed his hands together, "Shall we get to work?"

* * *

"This is gonna be a problem ain't it?"

"Yup" Bolt agreed.

After the conversation with the Doctor through the storeroom door, Bolt and Jenny had returned to the TARDIS as instructed, only to be reminded that it was currently buried under the same buckled upper walkway that Jenny had fallen down from. It was still connected from the end behind the TARDIS, but had been damaged by its obstructed descent, and had split and fallen in such a way that meant the pair couldn't get into the TARDIS without shifting the debris.

Jenny bent down to test the weight of the main offending panel that rather inconveniently had fallen against the door. She was deceptively strong for her size, but despite this she couldn't shift the grating even slightly. After a moment of straining and stretching, the young woman conceded defeat.

"Ain't ya gonna help?" she called back irritably.

Bolt didn't react, but instead stared unnervingly through Jenny. The Time Chaser had been watching the human's futile attempt with a rising sense of dread, knowing that only she could do only one thing that would enable them to move the wreckage of the upper walkway. She could allow her Panthereon mutation to break through, just long enough to clear the doorway and get them in the TARDIS. Her experience of being stuck in that form on Arceous had left her very tired, but she was certain she had recovered enough to control it for a few moments.

"Bolt?"

If it wasn't for the present company, she would have felt at ease with the option. However, given the how difficult it had been to win Jenny's trust, she didn't think that exposing her to a monster was going to help matters.

Anxiety pooled in Bolt's belly like a festering quagmire, bubbling and spitting with fear, and stalling her from action. Even the Doctor and Bill had run away from her the first time they saw her like that; who could say how this relative stranger would react?

"Please tell me you have a plan…" Jenny beseeched, her tone close to begging as she stood and rested a hand on Bolt's arm.

The touch made Bolt jump back into the present, and ultimately, it was the desperation in Jenny's face that convinced her to act. The young human looked ten years older than she should; lines bordered her eyes that deepened with worry, and her skin looked pale and gaunt. Even if she wasn't directly telling Bolt how worried she was about this Vastra person, her expression would give it away in an instant. It was enough for Bolt to resolve to do anything she could to help her.

"I do" Bolt placed a friendly, reassuring hand over Jenny's own and met her gaze steadily, "But you have to be ready for it" Bolt broke away from the grip and turned her back to the human, "I will have to… _change"_

"Look, there's a lot about me y'er don't know" Jenny smiled ruefully, "Believe me, it takes a _lot_ to ruffle _my_ feathers"

"Are you sure?" Bolt glanced back uncertainly, her heart smacking against her chest painfully in anticipation.

"Yes, _anything_ if you can get us up there" Jenny confirmed, her eyes one again darting tellingly towards the Control Room on the upper level.

Bolt nodded, and closed her eyes, allowing the same anger she had been forced to keep a lid on when they had fought earlier to course through her like hot lava, burning under her skin painfully as the transformation started to take effect. She thought back to the same bank of images that she kept locked tightly away on a daily basis for her own sanity and let them run riot in her head; Isabella succumbing to the plague, elderly Kate's final breaths, the silhouette of Aurora's killer, her parents' scattered bodies…and with each memory she felt a muscle tear and grow, a break of fur through her skin as agonising mutation permeated through her being.

The searing heat forced her to her knees, her hands clawing at her face as she allowed the change to take place. It felt harder than usual; her recent experiences had indeed taken a toll as she had expected, but she only needed to maintain the form for a few moments. Images of the base blurred confusingly swirled in her vision like a sickening mixture of paint. A constant high-pitched ringing hammered between her ears, and her legs felt unsteady as she hauled herself up and towards the TARDIS. But despite her state, she felt the inhuman strength that he had been hoping for vibrate through her limbs as she took her panther-like form. She could do this.

Quivering with the power, she walked past Jenny who, to her credit, didn't flinch or step back, but simple watched as Bolt grappled with the debris and heaved it to the side, freeing the door of the TARDIS with a resounding clang as the obstruction was thrown to the ground. The exertion was too much given the past few days, and the moment the task was done, Bolt allowed herself to collapse against the door and slide back into her natural, humanoid state – a far easier transformation, it had to be said.

Jenny rushed forward to catch the exhausted woman under her armpits, and helped her back to her feet, taking one of Bolt's arms over her shoulder.

"Crikey!" she exclaimed, "You didn't tell me it would damn well half kill yer!" she scalded, as she manoeuvred the pair of them through the door and into the TARDIS control room.

"I didn't think that was the bit you'd be bothered about" Bolt slurred, swallowing dryly as she propped herself up against the central TARDIS control panel.

"Give me a bit more credit that that!" Jenny countered, "It takes more than scales or fur to bother me…" she added cryptically, smiling quietly to herself.

"Then you are not like most people" Bolt croaked, taking deep breaths and knuckles turning white as she gripped on tight to the panel, "We need to turn on the transmitter" she heaved as she pulled herself around the controls, studying them as much as she could, "I believe it's here…"

Bolt pulled down a lever, which only expelled steam out of an unrelated vent.

"Perhaps not" she admitted, hurriedly jamming it back into position, "It must be close…"

She pulled the next lever along, and was rewarded with a short beeping noise. Bolt was about to reverse the action again when the grainy voice cut through the chaos.

"Jenny? Bolt? Are you there?"

"Here!" Jenny shouted back, happy to do the talking given Bolt's fragile state.

"Excellent!" the Doctor's tone conveyed just how much he was grinning as he spoke, and it was enough to ease the nerves of both the women, "I'm programming in the coordinates using Strax's device, give it five minutes and she should have you up to the Command Centre in no time" the sound of clicking and beeping followed, "Pick up Vastra and Bill and then get back down here for us…we've got the weapon situation in hand"

"Grenades!" Strax's voice interrupted gleefully, followed by a cackling laugh.

"Oh wonderful…" Jenny groaned sarcastically, "Wait…Bill's your friend you sent after Vastra right?" she asked.

"Yes, yes I told you all that" the Doctor replied dismissively, "Now you better get-"

"You did tell her what to expect, right?" Jenny pointed out sceptically.

The guilty, awkward silence from the Doctor confirmed that Jenny had been right to expect the worst. The human shook her head dejectedly.

"Jesus…" she cursed, "Just get us up there quickly, ok?" she grumbled. When no reply came she stormed over to a nearby railing and slammed her hands into it, gripping hard whilst her feet tapped a nervous rhythm on the floor.

Bolt looked on blearily but with curiosity as she crumpled onto the floor. If Jenny had been wound up before, by now she looked ready to collapse in apoplexy.

"So…" Bolt's voice was barely a whisper, but still overwhelming in the relative quiet of the TARDIS, punctuated only with various whirrs and clicks, "Who is this famous Vastra?"

The silence continued for a few moments whilst Jenny calmed herself down, before she piped up to reply.

"Well…" Jenny sighed and rolled her eyes, but seemed just as resultant to relinquish her secrets as Bolt, "What do you know about Siluarians?" she asked carefully, letting go of the bar and addressing the Time Chaser directly.

"Not much" Bolt admitted, "Very strong, formidable warriors, native lizard occupants of Earth…I just studied them – I've never met one in person"

The TARDIS shuddered suddenly, appearing to come to life as whatever the Doctor was programming started to take effect. Both the women instinctively clung on to the nearest point of strength as the trademark whining noise signalled their imminent departure

"Well you're about to" Jenny gritted her teeth as the ground began to rumble, "I'm _married_ to one"

' _At least that explains the name'_ thought Bolt, as they took off towards the Command Centre.

* * *

Bill was more than a little shaken about before she finally saw a crack of light descending though a gap ahead of her. She'd counted four bends, five knocks of the head, and at least six grazes to the knees and elbows during her trip up the ventilation shaft, and she could honestly say that she had never been happier to see a ray of light in her entire adult existence. She'd finally made it to the floor of the Command Centre.

She started to rush forward without thinking, earning her knock number six on the head as a reward for her haste. Nursing the injury, she positioned herself under the floor hatch and looked up; there was little to see through the wire mesh except a high-up nondescript roof with what looked like a loft door in the middle. It confirmed she had made it to the top, but what else lingered in that room was the next issue. All she knew is that a person named "Vastra" was up here, and that she would know what to do next. To say that Bill was dubious about this entire plan was an understatement to say the least.

Tentatively, she pushed on the hatch, and cracked it open enough to peer her eyes out through the gap. All she could see immediately were the bases of many computers and consoles, most of which looked like they had been attacked by a wild animal. Her entire body shook with anticipation as she lifted her head up a little higher, and allowed more of the seemingly deserted room into her sight. It truly was a mess in here; whoever had been here before her had been in the middle of a vicious fight – ripped wires and smashed glass littered the floor and desktops. Every screen was apparently turned off and black. Happy that she was alone, Bill lifted the hatch door off completely and laid it to one side to push her head through completely.

"Who are _you_?"

The cold voice behind her slashed her confidence to pieces. Bill felt a deathly chill fall from her forehead to her toes as she took a telling gasp of air. An empty laugh followed in response. It occurred to Bill that if whoever was behind her was capable of doing all this damage to the room, there was no limit to the harm they could cause to her. That is, if they wanted to.

Bill shakily turned around and immediately was caught by a pair of unblinking, gleaming, blue eyes, embedded in lustrous green scales.

"I said, _who are you?"_ the creature repeated darkly when Bill didn't answer.

Bill could practically see her voice grow legs and sprint from the room as she took in the complete figure before her. It was a reptilian creature, sat cross-legged on the floor with a katana across its lap and adorned in what looked like some form of traditional white and brown fighting tunic. But what scared Bill the most wasn't the weapon, but how _still_ the creature was. It reminded her of a big cat prowling silently through tall grass, frozen in that perfect moment just before it was ready to strike.

This was not what she had been expecting.

"Do you not speak?!" the creature hissed, its eyes narrowing in contempt.

"B…Bill" she stuttered back, "My…my name is Bill"

The creature cocked its head in a frighteningly avian manner, and studied Bill intently. She could practically feel the searching eyes like freezing tendrils across her skin. Bill shuddered, and the creature snapped her head back up straight.

"Your attire is not of this era, and your scent…" at this the creature breathed in deeply, "Your scent is confusing" it concluded, "How did you manage to arrive here, and what is your purpose?"

"I…" Bill was unsure what an appropriate level of disclosure was to this being; surely this wasn't who she had been sent to speak to?

"Because I've deduced that there is no way you could have entered this facility without outside aid" the lizard's eyes burned with a fierce intensity, "So either you are affiliated with this base, in which case I will be obliged to apprehend you, or you are lost, and are therefore of no use to me and may leave" she finished, her scaly fingers curling around the hilt of her sword as she waited for Bill's answer.

"What if I am neither of those things?" Billy asked searchingly, uncertain if it was a wise move, but reluctant to spur the creature to either attack or expel her from the room.

"Then I suspect you are lying" the creature huffed impatiently, "And also that you are wasting my time"

"What can I say to change your mind?" Bill asked, gripping the side of the vent intensely, still ridiculously stood with her bottom half in the ventilation shaft.

The creature frowned, and clenched and unclenched her fingers around the katana menacingly, further chipping away at Bill's resolve with each movement. It would be a lot easier, Bill thought, to retreat back down to the ground floor and just wait for Bolt to pilot the TARDIS back to them.

But there was no guarantee that would work, and so she reneged against the urge to flee and waited for the creature to pass judgement. The creature remained motionless for what felt like an eternity, before a triumphant smirk crossed her face.

"Very well. I will humour you before you leave. You may explain to me why you are up here and what you are looking for…" the creature began.

"I…"

" _But_ " the lizard continued, "You must explain it all in one word. If you can't, then you go. Understand?"

Bill nodded, dumbfounded.

"Good" the creature let go of the sword momentarily, laced her fingers together under its chin, and stared at Bill intently.

Bill couldn't help but think that they really didn't have time for this, but if she was going to help her friends and get them all out of this place in one piece, she would have to convince this creature to let her past.

It all came to Bill very suddenly – ' _Of course, the short man downstairs…Strax, he had described his friend as…green, lizard, reptile…'_ – whilst the Doctor hadn't specifically warned her, ' _Thanks for nothing Doctor'_ – she'd been too flustered by the stranger to realise that this actually _was_ who she was looking for.

That revelation made answering the question in one word a whole lot easier, because the Doctor had at least given her a name.

"Vastra"

"Yes" the lizard answered automatically.

"No – that was my word!" Bill smiled sympathetically, "I'm here to look for you"

"I don't-" the shock across Vastra's face was almost as frightening as her anger, "Who sent you?!" she demanded, rising to her feet, sword once again in hand.

"The Doctor" Bill confidently lifted herself out of the vent and bravely stood up to the Siluarian, "You can speak to him if you don't believe me" she offered, handing over the comm device.

Vastra wasted no time in snatching the comm device and speaking into it with furious urgency.

"Doctor? Doctor is it really you?"

"Nice to see you too Vastra" the Doctor's voice slunk out of the comm device in its sarcastic drawl, "Bill are you ok?"

"Yes, all good!" the human replied enthusiastically.

"Jenny" Vastra pleaded into the device desperately, "Have you seen her Doctor, tell me!"

"Last I checked she was going back to the TARDIS with a friend of mine" the Doctor's tone had switched to reassuring, "She's fine Vastra"

"Oh…" Bill could swear that the lizard woman whimpered as she raised a scaly hand to her mouth and seemed to be overcome for a moment, "I thought…"

"She's fine" the Doctor repeated knowingly, "But you won't be if you don't hurry up" his voice switched to commanding in a heartbeat, "The extraction team will be there any minute"

"The announcement said two hours?" Vastra shot back, horrified.

"Well you really spooked them – they're almost here" the Doctor growled, "At least tell me you have the data you came for?"

"No, I can't complete the process whilst the lockdown is in place" Vastra shook her head, and then looked around the room guiltily at the destruction she had wrought.

"Like I said – any minute now they'll be here – for a brief moment the lockdown will drop and then you'll be swarmed – you need to use that moment to get that data or it will all be for nothing"

As if brought on by the Doctor's prescient words, a rumbling noise began to permeate the building. Vastra and Bill looked at each other fretfully; neither really knowing what was happening. Then as if compelled by some invisible command, the previously black screens all started to light up and beep incessantly at the same time.

The base was turning back on.

"Lockdown deactivation process initiating"

The automated voice had returned; but instead of keeping them all locked up, it was about to let a lot of angry people in. To a very confined space.

"Quickly!" Vastra tucked away the comm device and sheathed he sword, and ran over to the keypad she had been attending to earlier, which had mercifully come out of her attack on the room with a few surface scratches, "Yes…yes it has remembered the progress", Vastra's fingers moved at lightning speed as she tried to re-execute the code from earlier, "Just a few more seconds…"

She was interrupted by a loud metal screeching sound, and then the automated voice once more.

"Re-attaching upper walkways. Opening emergency roof entrance"

Bill looked up as the same loft door she had noticed earlier slammed open. A beam of light broke through the middle of the room. At the same time, the singular back door leading out from the room whooshed open. From above and behind them, the same gowned, blue creatures rushed into the room.

"Vastra!" Bill yelled, backing towards the lizard woman.

"Stay back and watch the computer!" Vastra strode forward, katana unsheathed and stance predatory. Hissing, she rushed forward to engage the intruders, who were angrily making their way towards the pair with their quarterstaffs brandished. Moments later, a loud boom echoed from below the command centre.

There was no time for Bill to worry about the Doctor or Strax trapped downstairs, or whether or not the explosion was a good or bad thing. She could only cower behind the impressive figure that Vastra struck as she tore through the first two guards and kept the rest at bay. To avoid feeling ineffectual, she tried to keep an eye on the keypad Vastra had been attending to, and noticed that a small disk appeared to have ejected itself from the machine. Without thinking, she pocketed the disk and then continued to keep out of the way.

"I can't hold them for much longer" Vastra panted, pushing one guard away with her foot but taking a glancing hit to the shoulder, "Can you make it back to the vent?" she yelled back, as she sliced a quarterstaff in half.

"I'm not running away!" Bill yelled back incredulously, despite her body urging her to obey the older woman.

"It's no use!" Vastra cried as she manged to push away one guard, only to take a blow to the back by another, bending her over double, "Run-I…"

Before Bill had to consider the ethical implications of deserting the heroic Vastra as she watched her being swarmed by the incoming blue guards, the comforting sound of the TARDIS soared through the air – barricading itself in front of her. From the depths of the box sprung another katana wielding woman, who made a beeline for the guards that had overwhelmed Vastra, scattering them like bowling pins. Bill regained her wits in time to rush forward and into the TARDIS as Jenny helped Vastra to her feet. The pair of fighters fended off the guards back-to-back, as they had trained to do many times, and it was easy to see that the blue guardsmen were no match for the combined prowess of Jenny and Vastra. One stroke after another sent the guards retreating back far enough for the two women to step back into the TARDIS and slam the door shut.

With no resistance left, the guards returned and began to hammer on the door as the four women regarded each other curiously; Bolt surveying the scene weakly from the floor, Vastra and Jenny standing shoulder to shoulder, and Bill staring at the door anxiously, expecting it to burst open at any minute.

There was little time for reunions or introductions however.

"Doctor" Vastra whipped out the comm device, taking charge as she spoke into it, "Doctor are you there?"

The attack on the door seemed to intensify suddenly. Bill backed towards where Bolt lay on the floor as Jenny drew her sword up in front of her face, ready for anything which might break through.

"Y….es…." a muffled reply came through, peppered with the sounds of blaster fire and maniacal laughing in the distance, "Just got a bit of trouble here – give me a moment"

"We have problems too!" Vastra glanced back at her wife, who was looking less and less confident in the ability of the door to protect them.

"I know" the Doctor replied, various scrambling sounds following as he presumably moved around, "Strax hold still for one moment"

"You are interfering with glorious battle!" came the familiar Sontaran voice, followed by beeping noises and the sound of buttons being pressed.

"Hurry-" Vastra started, before the TARDIS suddenly burst into life, throwing the four women into a heap on the floor and flinging itself into flight. The group clung on to anything stationary as they rocked and shuddered to a standstill in an incredibly short flight.

The door burst open, and the sound of blaster fire and the chaos of battle was now much louder and closer than it had been before. Vastra started to pull herself up when the Doctor bowled through the door, almost knocking her back down.

"Strax!" he called back, "Set off the rest of the grenades!"

A large explosion followed, similar to the one that Bill had heard from above, and the squat Sontaran followed through the door, hands rapidly firing defensive shots out of the door and into the fray outside. As Strax slammed the door, the Doctor was already attentively prepping the TARDIS for escape.

"Report, Strax"

"The weapons are destroyed Commander!" Strax confirmed gleefully, "The circuitry is ruined for good…such a waste" he finished sorrowfully.

"Good – then we can leave" the Doctor pulled down hard on a lever and the TARDIS pulled sharply away from the base, "I hope you don't mind an unexpected house call?" he called back to the recovering Vastra and Jenny.

"Honestly Doctor, anywhere but here works for me" Vastra replied exhaustedly, as she held onto Jenny and braced for the trip home.


	10. Chapter 10

After escaping the underground base, the gang settled in the sitting room of Paternoster Row – all feeling a little worse for wear and delicate, and also a little confused as to how the other party was involved. Strax, too excited by the success of his grenades, had scuttled of to tinker with various other weapons for the future.

The Doctor paced around the room in a troubled fashion as Jenny returned with various beverages for all the remaining tired occupants of the room, who sat in various stages of collapse across all of Vastra's ornate furniture. Once the drinks had been distributed, Jenny settled herself on the sofa next to Vastra, comfortingly resting her head on the Silurian's shoulder.

"So Jenny" the Doctor started, mind clearly racing through all the information they had accumulated during the near-disastrous trip, "Strax told me that one of the weapons we found also turned up here?"

There was a loaded pause in the room as Vastra subtly eyed her wife as if to check she was comfortable with the direction of the conversation. The Doctor waited expectantly; apparently oblivious to the discomfort he had created in the room. Jenny heavily lifted her head from Vastra's shoulder and gave a miniscule nod before eventually speaking.

"My father, yes" Jenny dipped her chin sadly, "He..."

Perhaps it was the events of the day overwhelming her, but for a moment the young woman appeared incapable of going on. It was only a steadying hand on her thigh from Vastra that seemed to bolster her enough to continue.

"He got 'old of one of those weapons, those horrible sticks of light. Jus' being around it finished 'im off" Jenny's breath hitched, earning her a tighter squeeze of the hand from Vastra, "By the time I went to him 'e was too far gone"

"How on earth did he get his hands on one of those?!" The Doctor exclaimed, still not reacting appropriately to his friend's distress, "In Victorian London of all places?"

"Well Doctor, you seem to forget that we just came from a base full to the brim of them! Blessedly destroyed now..." Vastra paused and sighed with relief, "Aside from that, Jenny's father would only say that he was given it by a woman, and she told him it would help him find his daughter"

"I can think of a few women who might want to mess with those closest to me..." the Doctor conceded ruefully, "But that's a problem for another day"

"Indeed, as we seem to be no closer to a lead in any of this" Vastra concluded glumly, "It certainly didn't help that a particular TARDIS interrupted my hacking sequence" she added, arching her scaled forehead.

"Details, details" the Doctor waved off, "We have the chance to form a mutually beneficial partnership, surely that's worth it?"

"Yes but you have to admit that the intrusion was most inconvenient..."

Bill had been happily content to watch over the proceedings with growing bemusement; she'd just about worked out that the lizard woman and her companion were romantically linked (which explained the Doctor's frankly ridiculous comment about them being "your kind of people") and that they also had some investment in stopping the same weapons that had killed Bolt's people. Bill looked over to her new friend and saw that she was actually asleep on one of Vastra's ornate chairs; she must have really knocked herself out in that base. Bill couldn't help but feel a pang of affection for the Time Chaser; she really had been through a lot these past few days. It was easy for forget that she wasn't as young as her outer appearance suggested.

But at the mention of the base, Bill remembered the small disk she had taken at the base, lying surreptitiously in the pocket of her denim jacket. It suddenly felt incredibly heavy, as if the responsibility attached to it was beginning to transform into literal weight.

"Ummm...guys?"

The two intellectuals stopped squabbling and looked over at Bill as if they had only just remembered she was still in the room.

"Does this help?" She asked hopefully, her face contorted into an unconvincing grin as she drew the disk out of her pocket and waited to be derided for interrupting their " _very important_ " conversation.

But no such reprisal came, only an excited yelp of surprise from Vastra, who looked like her eyes might burst from her skull in shock.

"You absolute miracle!" She exclaimed, clapping her hands together enthusiastically and beaming at Bill with warmth the human would have not thought her capable of, "Oh I could just..."

The exact destination of that sentence was cut short by a self-conscious clearing of the throat by Jenny, accompanied with a jab to Vastra's side, and an incredulously arched eyebrow. Bill looked down in embarrassment - she wasn't used to being an object of admiration or jealousy, and certainly not both at the same time.

"Just... _analyse that data_ , of course" Vastra laughed emptily and swallowed hard, "Doctor if you could..."

The Time Lord had already leapt forward to retrieve the disk off of Bill and darted inside the TARDIS (which was parked in the same room), leaving his companion to face the inter-species couple alone for a few moments.

"So..." Bill ventured curiously, "You two are...?"

"Married" Jenny answered protectively, linking an arm around her uncharacteristically silent and sheepish wife.

"Right!" Bill nodded gladly, "Funny that"

"Why?" Jenny asked, slightly curtly.

"Well it's just...it's only really been legal in my time for a few years, you know"

"Marriage?" Jenny asked, not following.

"No umm...two women getting married" Bill clarified awkwardly, "Don't worry it's great, honestly, same team!" She reassured, gesturing between the three women as if to identify that they were all in it together.

This only seemed to earn her a narrowing of the eyes from Jenny, and a beseeching look from Vastra, who seemed to be doing her best to nonverbally beg Bill to stop talking. Bill was just glad that at least the Doctor and Bolt were not party to this humiliating episode.

Before things could deteriorate further, the Doctor re-entered the room from the parked TARDIS. He somehow was managing to look both triumphant and confused.

"Well it worked" he confirmed, as the TARDIS door swung shut behind him, " But it doesn't make of sense" he admitted, "A lot of the data is encrypted, and I can only manage to extract one planet name - the last one that this " _death_ " energy was recently supplied to"

"Go on" Vastra encouraged, sitting further forward in anticipation. Out of the corner of her eye, Bill could also see that Bolt appeared to be partially conscious again and was starting to open her eyes.

"It doesn't add up" he gritted his teeth in frustration, "It's a tiny obscure farming colony on a distant future planet - Ellekis. But way use would they have for this sort of weaponry or the death energy? They're technologically primitive in comparison"

"Yes but so are we" Jenny piped up hopefully, "We ain't exactly up to your speed 'ere in Victorian London, yet they set up camp below us"

"And the place we found Bolt - Arceous was it?" Bill caught her new friends eye, who sluggishly managed to nod her agreement, "You said it was the perfect place to hide because they would never suspect what was happening under their noses!"

"I've seen it too" croaked Bolt, stopping to take sip of water from one of the glasses Jenny had brought in, "1348 - your human plague. They showed up just before it all broke out" she coughed violently and gulped back the rest of the glass before setting it aside, "Nobody had a clue they were there except me and...a friend..." she trailed off, obviously not wanting to expand on the subject.

Bill made a mental note to try and find more about that later.

"Of course!" The Doctor slapped himself on my head, "You're right Bill, I said it myself, there's no better place to hide in plain sight! Any advanced society would have then tracked and thrown out in minutes!" He gripped at his grey hair and then threw his hands into the air in elation, "It's not the colony that are ordering the weapons, it's someone else who shouldn't be there!"

The room all hummed their approval of this summation before the grim reality of the words set in hard.

"That sounds bad" Bolt growled from her depressed position, "Especially for the colonists"

"I have to agree with our... _esteemed_ _friend_ " Vastra assented, but at the same time casting an uncertain eye towards Bolt, "We really must prevent any further harm coming from these accursed weapons"

"Then you'll come with us?" The Doctor rushed forward to clap his hands roughly on Vastra's shoulders, "I think we're going to need the help"

"You do not need to ask" Vastra smiled, calmly detaching the Doctor's hands from her body, "But I think it best for us to wait until tomorrow - and I wouldn't mind a few things explaining"

She inclined her head towards Bolt, who had once again fallen into a deep slumber.

"Ah. Yes." The Doctor flushed guiltily, "Perhaps I have brushed over some points a little"

* * *

"So you two fought?"

It was evening, and Vastra and Jenny had been brought up to speed by the Doctor regarding Bolt and their intrusion at the underground base. Once all the detail had been explained, Vastra was now more _fascinated_ with Bolt than anything else. The Time Chaser's history was confusingly, many years in the future for the Silurian, but with her prodigious intelligence, it had only taken Vastra a few hours of study skimming over some of the Doctor's futuristic history books to gain a scholar's understanding of the subject.

Jenny had mainly watched on affectionately, only encouraging Vastra to be a little gentler with her questioning of Bolt, who had spent most of the day either sleeping, or walking around in a confused haze (but had sportingly humoured all of Vastra's well-meaning interest).

The human suspected the root of the fascination was that Vastra and Bolt both shared the spurious ' _privilege_ ' of being the last of their kind, in an age where understanding was seldom found, which is why she was not angry at Vastra for _still_ talking about the subject, even though they were now sat in bed.

"Yeah, well, not really" Jenny admitted sheepishly, "It was more a case of me threatening 'er and then being thrown off" she flushed pink in embarrassment, "I should have been more careful"

"But with her _condition_ surely it wasn't a fair fight?!" Vastra smiled encouragingly, trying to alleviate some of the shame.

"She didn't use it against me" Jenny admitted, "Only to get us in the TARDIS" she murmured, hanging her head dejectedly.

"That is most peculiar" Vastra hummed, thinking about the situation carefully, "I wouldn't have thought you could be simply bested by someone unarmed my love, what happened?"

"I was distracted" the human whispered, "I 'eard all the noise from where you were and I thought…" she trailed off, "It was foolish of me; if Bolt hadn't been friendly she easily could have…" she shook her head decisively, "I won't do it again" she promised.

Talks like these were common in Paternoster Row; what went well in a mission, what could be improved on, but Vastra was not used to Jenny acting in such a self-deprecating manner.

"My dear, you are not made of stone, it is actually rather… _touching_ that you reacted in such a way" Vastra gently stoked Jenny's upper arm, which only prompted the younger woman to flinch away irritably, earning her an exasperated expression from her wife, "Goddess Jenny have I not done exactly the same! Think of Trenzalore! I threatened to kill poor Strax for pity's sake!"

"That was ages ago!" Jenny snapped back, "And you know better now!"

Vastra felt a guilty twist in her stomach; she had been hoping not to admit what had happened in the Underground Base to anyone, but it now it appeared as if it would be the only way to comfort her wife. As much as she hated admitting her own failures, the only thing she could abide even less was seeing Jenny unhappy.

"That's not strictly true…." Vastra winced as she recalled her previous rage but kept going nonetheless, "When you rescued me from the Control Centre in that Underground Base, you saw how… _mutilated_ everything was?"

"Yeah" Jenny frowned, clearly not seeing where this conversation was headed, "You had a hard fight – I heard it from down…"

"No" Vastra cut in, "That wasn't from fighting. I…lost my temper, when the lockdown sounded and I lost contact with you"

" _What?"_

"It was just like Trenzalore" Vastra whimpered, "I've clearly not changed"

"I could have-" Jenny's thoughts were running at breakneck speed, "I thought that you- Vastra you could have destroyed the data!"

"I know!" Vastra buried her crest into her hands, "I couldn't help it Jenny – I never can when it's you!" an audible, strangled sob broke through her scaly fingers, "Sometimes I fear you are the only thread that separates my humanity from the monster in me"

"Love" Jenny took a deep breath and let the frustration dissipate from her voice, "You ain't got a monster in you"

"You know I do" Vastra countered seriously, "You've seen it"

"If getting' mad at someone 'urting someone you love makes you a monster, I think we're all damned" Jenny gently placed her own hands over Vastra's and pulled them from her face so that she couldn't hide, "Didn't I jus' tell you that I did it too?"

"You didn't destroy anything" Vastra cast Jenny a sidelong, unconvinced glance.

"Yeah but didn't I attack Bolt for no reason?" Jenny slunk a hand around Vastra's waist and rubbed her thumb against her side, "We all do things outta character sometimes"

Vastra mulled over Jenny's words for a while before allowing a gentle smile to curve the side of her mouth.

"Perhaps…" she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, "We just need to trust each other to look after ourselves a little more?"

"I wouldn't want you to stop _completely_ " Jenny leaned in affectionately, glad they had both managed to alleviate each other's fears during the conversation somehow, "Just maybe don't bloody well tear everything apart next time"

"Deal" Vastra rested her head on top of Jenny's soft, loosely falling hair, "I'd prefer there not to be a " _next time_ " though"

"It's us" Jenny quipped, "There always will be"

* * *

Bill's behaviour could best be described as "loitering".

The young woman had been milling around outside the spare room in Paternoster Row for at least ten minutes now, wondering whether or not it was appropriate to knock on the old wooden door.

The room was what once had been Jenny's bedroom, before she had moved permanently into Vastra's many years ago. Right now it was temporarily housing Bolt, who had been herded in there and safely away from Vastra's incessant interrogation. But that had been many hours ago, and she hadn't resurfaced since.

Bill knew it was late, and that Bolt was probably asleep, but she couldn't seem to help herself. She had too many questions; not just about the situation as a whole, but also about Bolt too. The more little titbits of information Bill received about the Time Chaser, the more curious she became; who was this other child that Bolt had mentioned on Arceous? What was the prophecy they were supposed to be a part of? More bizarrely, how had the Time Chaser found her way to Earth during the Black Death?

Bill had considered asking the Doctor, but he had quite resolutely squirreled himself away in the TARDIS and was trying to break the encryption on the disk Bill had rescued from the base. Bill wasn't convinced he was even going to attempt to sleep. She had entered the TARDIS to attempt to speak to him, but had been met with an _icy_ reception, at best.

" _Bill" the Doctor had spoken, as the young woman entered the TARDIS._

" _Doctor. I…" Bill suddenly felt rather sheepish, "I was wondering if you might be able to-"_

" _There's no use getting attached you know"_

 _The Doctor hadn't even looked up from the screen where he was working on decrypting the information to address her._

"… _what?" a stunned Bill had managed a one word reply._

" _To the Time Chaser. They're a standoffish race, especially with other species. Very restrictive"_

" _Bolt doesn't seem like that…"_

" _Bill…" a low growl had emanated from the base of his throat, "I wasn't exaggerating when I said she is literally half a being" the Doctor jabbed at some flashing pop-ups on his screen and resolutely refused to catch Bills' eye, "Given everything she's been subjected to, at best she has to have severe PTSD"_

" _Says you!" Bill impulsively shot back, arms crossed and expression unimpressed._

 _At this the Doctor had stopped what he was doing, and became almost eerily still. Bill felt her stomach lurch, as if to punish herself for going too far. When he didn't move further, the young woman figured it would be wiser to leave. Her body was half-turned to walk out when a resigned voice followed her retreating figure,_

" _That's how I know. These things never end well"_

 _Bill had paused to contemplate for a second, and then pushed her way out of the TARDIS in frustration._

To say that Bill did not have time for the Doctor's morose behaviour was an understatement; the gall of that man! If he wanted to wallow in his own memories he was more than welcome to, but that didn't meant that that Bolt was the same. The Time Chaser had only shown Bill kindness since they had been aquatinted, and the human didn't see a good reason why this shouldn't be returned.

She had been so confident she was right, but now she was stood outside the door, doubt started to creep into the forefront of her mind. Was this not just going to come across as indulgent curiosity on her part? What did she have to say to Bolt that could ever be adequate enough to accommodate for everything the older woman had been through? The young woman fumbled her hands before gnawing the side of a knuckle; the Doctor might have had a valid point after all.

He could have been more tactful with how he made it though. That she still maintained.

Bill bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet nervously. She had more or less decided to take the Doctor's advice and leave things be before she heard a faint voice from inside the room.

"Aurora"

Bill rooted herself still, torn as to whether she was overstepping a boundary by listening in, or whether moving would only incriminate her at this point.

"I'm sorry. Yet another day has passed where I have let you down. But I feel the strands tightening. I will not stop…"

Bill began to feel uncomfortable with her presence outside the door, and was certain that Bolt wouldn't want her to overhear all this. But an insistent part of her guiltily wanted to know and was desperate to understand her enigmatic new friend. That is, if Bolt even considered her to be a friend at this stage. Then, from behind the door, a muffled song verse began,

" _My heart did you think I had forgotten you? Deserted and forsaken you?"_

Bill felt all warmth drain from her limbs right down to her fingerprints. The tone was so mournful, but longing and loving – the implications were sickeningly sad. It was as if it was being sung directly to and through her. The TARDIS translated for her automatically, but she instinctively felt that this was in another language, originally. It was beautiful, in a dark, alien, and melancholy way.

She internally chastised herself for her own naivety, for ever believing she had a right to pry on this information. What did she know? Yes she had lost Heather, someone she had known for a few days, but this was something outside of her comprehension. Bolt had spoken of another child who died, and some type of bond that Bill didn't completely understand, but she could appreciate it now. Silently as she could, the human snuck away from the scene, and made her way away from the door before she heard any more.

She had nothing to say to the Time Chaser.

What she couldn't have heard was a choke in Bolt's voice as she fumbled the lines holding back tears, and what she couldn't have seen was Bolt's confused face as she opened the door to check who was outside, only to find an empty corridor.

" _Must be getting slow…"_

And what she couldn't have ever felt was the disappointment when Bolt closed the door on another friendless night accompanied by only memories of ghosts.


End file.
